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Like most moms of school age kids, I am one efficient mama in the mornings. Everything is done with the thought of what I can do while I'm waiting on something else. I get up, shower and wash my hair,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], unload the dishwasher, make my youngest child's breakfast and lunch, help my oldest child get ready for the early middle school bus, do a final check for homework, gym shoes, and give them all a rundown on after school plans. After they all get to school, I do the dishes, start the day's laundry,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], clean the bathrooms, vacuum the floors,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], wipe down the windows and mirrors and take the dogs for a walk. Then I start my workday.
My mother-in-law tried to give me some important marital/domestic advice when I was a very young bride. I forgot to listen (as I did quite a lot when I was a very young bride) and it was to my peril.
Lately I've been feeling sort of crushed under the weight of my own responsibility.
I have become a multitasker, despite myself. As a writer, I value greatly the singular focus, which I get when they are all at school (thank goodness).
It's not that everyone in my home is irresponsible. I actually feel (finally) that my kids are learning to be pretty conscientious little people. I'm not doing too much for them, it's just that running a home with three kids and two dogs and two businesses comes with a lot of daily tasks �C which I do.
"If you do something often enough �C on a regular basis,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], it will become your job for the next 70 years," she warned. "Be very careful about what you do often and on a regular basis. Be very careful about the jobs you take on."
And so I have been keeping an ongoing Word document on my computer desktop in which I list all of the positive things, thoughts,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], ideas, and activities in my life. I try to add every little thing that brings me joy in the day to day routine/adventure of my life.
I am like a machine, an automaton. And I begin to get demoralized when I realize that I am so good at my routine that �C if I don't do things �C they don't get done. If I go to bed before someone else and I don't turn off all the lights beforehand, they are still blazing when I wake up in the morning.
It's also not that the other members of my family don't care. It's that I've been doing it for as long as anyone can remember,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], so it's no longer part of anyone else's routine to do any part of my job.
And then every so often, I take a look at how my life has plodded along and I realize that while I was doing the same old thing, I got old. My kids grew out of their toddler shoes.
I feel compacted, flattened by my own routine.
And maybe it's because I need a quick vacation but,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], lately, I've been feeling especially trampled by these responsibilities. Also lately, I've been on a big time positive thinking kick. That is because it has become suddenly clear to me that the more I focus on the positive aspects of my life,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the more open I become to the solutions I need. The more I can stop ranting and start appreciating, the more quickly the answers to my problems become clear. Obvious even. As long as I can get out of a negative space and into a positive one, answers come to me,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], along with greater surges of happiness.
Adventure is,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], by definition,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], not part of the routine, and so it wasn't accounted for. It got left out.
Today, I write something that takes me by surprise. Today I say that I am grateful for all of my responsibilities �C because they indicate that I am living almost my entire life in service to others. And it means that just about everything I do matters. It actually matters to someone. Someone whom I love.
Also, I lost all sense of adventure.
Now that is something to be grateful for. And,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], for today, in this somewhat routine season of my life,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], it is enough.
Also like a lot of moms with school age kids,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], I relish routines because I know that if something's important enough to be done every day, it has to fit into my routine. Once it's in my daily schedule,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], it becomes something I don't question. I just do it.
It's fun to watch moms who also forgot to listen to advice of this kind. We can wipe up messes, tell three kids to put their shoes away,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], quiz someone for tomorrow's Spanish test and fry an egg �C all at the same time.