When 2008 dawned, I dawned a brand new calendar to keep in my purse. The purpose of said calendar was to organize my life. I had realized that the older Zach got, and the more involved I got in the community and our church, I could no longer rely on my memory to keep up with our schedules and commitments. I found myself more than once having to call someone to let them know I could not do something after all, since I was already committed at that time.
The calendar system has worked very well for me, except for one thing. When I found that I had a relatively blank day, I found myself filling it with things and no longer did I have any blank days. I mentioned this to a friend of mine who told me to brace myself; craziness is what life is all about. As I reflected on that, I decided that craziness is a decision that I was making, not something out of my control happening to me. We can either choose to fill in those blank days (or hours), or reserve them for things our family needs us to do for them. We can either make sure every hour of the day is accounted for, or we can be flexible and therefore be available when a friend is in need.
This is why I found myself at a fork in the road. I knew that I was at a point where I could either continue down the path of a too-full plate of activities, or I could intentionally lighten that load a bit and be more useful to my family.
I decided to lighten the load.
Rather than always feeling behind, stressed and frustrated, Gary and I have decided that it would be better for me to not be a preschool teacher next year. Last summer as I approached sending my "baby" off to school, I wasn't sure what I would ever do with my time. Now, I see that even though I was at home tending to him, I was also doing errands, cleaning, doing laundry, cooking, etc. I have taken on the very, very flexible job of caring for our church workroom, and I will also continue to be very involved at Zach's school. This will definitely allow me to fill or empty my plate as needed. I also have realized that when I am too busy, my Spiritual life is what suffers most, and that is not okay with me.
Sometimes craziness cannot be helped. I have been there and lived that. It is truly a luxury that our family can allow me to stay at home, and I am very aware of how blessed we are for that. And so it seems to me that if craziness can be helped, it would be silly to do it to myself anyway.
4 comments:
I totally get that. Simplify was my motto for 2007, and our schedule had a major overhaul because of it. Sometimes we just have to remember why we chose to be a stay at home mom.
How exciting! I now realize after going back to work and not doing all the little extra things I did when I stayed home. Now, I am missing doing those things. I have decisions to make as well.
You are so blessed to have that option and a husband who supports it. I am beyond overwhelmed right now and just got sick because of it! I think our lives are just gong to get busier b/c of our kids ages and I will eventually have to go full time in the thick of it! I am dreading it. I am happy for you that you can be around for Zach and Gary more and I know that they will appreciate that forever!
Thomas will be sad to hear you're leaving but he understands 100%. However, is there any way I can schedule some pirvate music lessons so he won't forget his favorite song, "My Mother is a Baker"?
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