Mommy’s Groove

I marvel at my ability to feel conviction about both sides of an issue through which I have talked myself over the course of one short day. But when it comes to ego boosting goodies, it is so easy to become convinced of one perspective over the other, then flip back. It’s the age old struggle between the value of tangible vs intangible rewards. I am not immune to it.

I have to remind myself that I left the paid workforce when my kids were just 4 and 5 years old and my husband was travelling extensively with a new and intense job. This is not a new story. There is plenty of work to be done for a family which can be done a good housekeeper or nanny type; but when the 5 year old began to act as if she were responsible for time managment over the school lunch hour, it became clear that no nanny was going to bring equilibrium back to our household as well as I could. I didn’t so much decide this was the right thing to do, as feel it was.

There is the rub. My intellectual drive wants to be working at something challenging, something which contributes to a greater good and something which measures and rewards success.  I miss the buzz of deadlines, the energy a good team brings to a project and good puzzles to solve. And let’s face it, I liked getting paid to use my brain and loved the recogntion of a hard earned bonus or promotion.

So if I listen to this side of my brain, I should be seeking as quickly as possible some paid work which gets me back into that space which energizes and drives me. But the flip side still calls out to my values.

I need to have a reasonably organized family life in order for my kids to have a balance of age appropriate responsibilities and room to choose where and when to grow emotionally and intellectually. I can’t pick the days they need me to witness their after-school successes or daily dramas which unfold between 3:30 and 4:00.  They are still so young; at 5 and 7 they still turn to me when they feel fragile after an upset during school, and need me to be there to provide a lap and a story after school. And they love to see me working in the halls at school, being part of their daily world. If I prioritize my intellectual needs, I will be choosing work over what the kids need on a day-to-day basis to just be kids. There is a certainty which will last may years after a paycheque, about being able to do what is needed for the kids when their growth requires it. But that is an intangible reward if there ever was one.

My sense is that this will change in time. When the kids are a bit older, engaged with after school activities and more easily able to handle being in structured care 12 months of the year, there will be an opportunity. Knowing that I am less involved in their day-to-day growth, I will be able to carve-out some space for the ego boosting goodies.Those tangible treats I crave.

Perhaps there is a way to get some of them, now…

There is struggle going on between me and my writing. I am doing my usual processing: allowing the facts to hit me, soak in and be understood in their own sweet time. I always know that when the path to wherever is clear, I will start typing and be off. No hesitation, no judgment no worries.

But she, my writing, has another agenda. She wants the flexibility to get on with it. She doesn’t want to wait for the clouds to part and for there to be focus, clarity and a driving structure. She wants to get dirty, wrestle with the words and see what sense they will make of themselves.

I love structure and order. I consider myself a lover of systems and process. But I have also proved that I can live with ambiguity and pace myself through change. This is the real root of the conflict between me and her. I feel as if I am in transition, one foot here and another peaking out the door to I don’t now where. I busy myself during this time with the details of living. I reason that with Chuck travelling for long stretches and the kids still turning more toward me than away, that my scatteredness is justified - no, it’s an asset. It makes me available, it requires me to be Present, in the Here and Now.

For those who like structure, order and value routine, being Here and Now is not a comfortable place. For the Here and Now is messy. It involves dealing with the emotions du jour, picking up the threads of instruction from school and weaving them into dinner preparation or plotting the next tour du Kitchener-Waterloo to gather life’s necessities. Order and routine involve planning, an understanding of motives and a grand plan to deliver a highly valued scheme - like consistent bedtime so one achieves the benefits of serotonin and can be alert at school. I like the bigger picture, but my life cannot be planned and I live in the tension between the uncertainty in my daily life and the illusion I create that I am able to order and plan. For I am not.

So my writing and I, we have tension we are trying to reconcile. It’s much like the tensions between Mommy’s Groove and the corporate head which still dwells within me. We continue to wrestle. This is our dance.