I have been posting everyday and then well, I didn’t. It looks bad that the lull started right after my angry post. It makes it seem like I am still in some mood too fierce to reckon with, which actually isn’t true. I just got busy. When I read a recent post by Fierce and Nerdy I could relate:
filed in Fierce and Nerdy on Nov.06, 2009
I sometimes find that the answer to feeling insanely overwhelmed with juggling everything is to let all the balls drop, so that you can reconfigure and juggle even better when you pick up the balls again.
I responded in her comment section with:
I did more than drop my balls, I flung them all around and they are now collecting dust in various corners of the room. I often try to put on my Superwoman cape and try to keep it all together but it never works. I only manage to do a bad job at a lot of things. I am trying to mend my evil ways. On today's to-do list is only to try to discover ways to have my life feel more manageable and joyful.
And since then, I just keep thinking about what this all means, the balls, the lack of time, the anger. Is it related? I was lamenting my harried life to a friend and I asked her how she manages to keep her house clean and get everything done? She shrugged and said, “well, I don’t do anything else. I take care of the kids and when they go to bed I clean. I don’t do any other jobs." Hmm.
She doesn’t do anything else. I don’t really believe her.
What would it be like if I just took care of my kids? If I didn’t also work for the Green Burial Council and Natural Undertakings, if I didn’t also aspire to do something with my writing and keep this blog. If I didn’t have a deadline that requires me to work elsewhere after the children go to bed (why are buildings so noisy- creaks and squeaks and bumps- late at night when you are by yourself?). If I didn’t have proofreading work that is waiting in my inbox. If my parents didn’t need so much attention, if I didn’t have so many things I wanted to do. My house is filled with potential projects- a half finished knitted shawl, a started woven rug, books waiting to be read in every nook. I want a garden and chickens, I want to travel and go hiking. I would like to take up yoga and learn about medicinal herbs. I want to improve my photography skills and learn Amharic. I want to help women in Ethiopia find a way to support their children, I would love to go back to school for a long list of things. I am envious of people who just know what they want to do and they just do it. Is it a sign of a troubled mind to have so many interests, to have so many yearnings?
I am suddenly reminded of the happy dry cleaner. When I worked for a theatre company in New Jersey I used to take costumes each week to the dry cleaner in town. He was always so happy. I went to him for several years and I never saw him anything but happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. I would ask him why he was so happy. He claimed to just enjoy life. Happy also claimed to watch TV each night and love his work. He collected dirty, smelly, stained clothes and returned them to their owners less so. He didn’t aspire to do anything else. (Believe me over the years I grilled him.)
I used to send my friends to him so I could get a report back to see if he was happy with everyone, not just putting on the show to meet my expectations. He was always happy. 'Isn’t his happiness amazing?', I would ask my friends. They didn’t seem to develop the same obsession about him as I did. Happy was perhaps manically happy. To make me even crazier, I met his wife and she was, well, a b_ _ _ _. He worked 12 hour days six days a week and he had that wife. Happy had no good reason to be happy.
Maybe it was the dry cleaning chemicals causing unlikely happy hormones to overdevelop in his system. They left him content to toil by day and TV by night without other interests getting in the way and mucking things up. He had discovered the Zen of dry cleaning and required nothing more. Maybe he just saw the glass as huge and always full even if it wasn’t. Someone should do some doctorate research on Happy.
I am not unhappy. I am just perpetually seeking new anything and everything with an insatiable curiosity for it all which is where the inevitable juggling comes in.The part that gets me is that he can be so satisfied with working at the dry cleaners, watching TV and being with that wife. Repeat. Repeat again. And again.
For me, variety is indeed the spice of life. So, while my kids and I decide to investigate the uses of levers and build a lever in the backyard with a two by eight and try to pick each other up, I can’t help but be distracted by gardening plans while my kids turn the lever into a seesaw. And when we go to the Chester County Historical Museum to see the quilt exhibit it is only natural that I come home and dig out that half finished quilt out of the attic and start planning the rest of it and then I come across a box of my old writing, start reading, and become inspired to finish writing a short story that I started. And then it is dinner and I haven’t planned anything yet so I look on the internet for a good recipe and run across a web site about raw food and follow links to other raw food sites and then I realize that I still have to go print out photos for another job with a deadline that is quickly approaching. Dinner is pulled together in a flash, only partially raw. I go to OC and print the photos and long to do each activcity I see the young people doing. While the photos are printing I start to wonder how the concepts of open education, flexible thinking and natural learning could be applied to attachment therapy for newly adopted children. The only support I can find on attachment disorders relies heavily on parenting techniques I try to avoid like overly praising and reward-based training. I realize it is 2 am and I need to get home. I am babysitting all day tomorrow and having a dinner party for my husband’s birthday. Wouldn’t it be nice if the kids created large canvas paintings to hang in my husband’s office?
Hey, what are those balls doing all over the floor?
5 comments:
Donna,
I think that having so many interests and passions is one reason why you unschool your children! You want them, I'm sure, to also develop lots of passions and to follow their hearts, as you follow yours. It is OK to not finish something....I learn that from my kids everyday. My advice is to always follow the path of the day and see where it leads. And, never feel disappointed in yourself for not finishing something....it is all about this life journey!
Donna, as someone who knows exactly what she wants to do with the rest of her life, I am jealous that you have passion for so many different things. Alas, the grass is always greener.
The way I'm able to keep juggling is to have a limited amount of balls in the air, and I'm a huge one for abandoning a ball (like cross-stitching) full stop if it won't help me reach my life goals. But I dream of retirement the way others dream of career success, b/c I fully plan to pick those abandoned balls back up, wipe the dust off of them and m/b even acquire some new ones.
I have been reading your blog ever since you posted on mine and I adore it. If I were to encourage you to pick one ball back up it would be this one.
I find that doing my personal column every day has been a wonderful boon to my mental health which I try to attend diligently, thus Friday's dropping of the balls. Often writing about how I'm feeling helps me to process it and then do something about it in a way that thinking and talking about it just don't.
Anywho, just know that dropped balls never get away. There always there for you when you're ready.
Best,
etc
Thank you! I needed that!! PS - Happy B-day to the other damn husband!!!
You are not the only one. I feel like I wasted untold time before having children. I wish I could get that time back. All I can do now is do the best with what I have. If a ball or two drops every now and then, I consider myself doing well.
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