23rd
SAHMotherhood
I am currently working in the hardest job I have ever had for no monetary compensation. It is 24/7, extremely demanding while at the same time often mind-numbingly dull. It allows me to be with our young daughters, but I feel I seldom truly get to BE with them. This is my fault, and it has come about because I have worked, and worked hard, in many other jobs that are “results-driven” on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. This job has forced me to redefine “results,” and I am failing miserably at that. I just cannot wrap my head around calling a day successful unless I got to cross things off this ridiculously long to-do list. A to-do list, I might add, that is even remotely impossible to accomplish with children anywhere near me, let alone on my lap or crawling up my legs.
I am in the process of carving out some space and time for myself as I consider my own next career move, wanting to work just part-time while our girls are still so young. I crave uninterrupted adult discourse, speaking in full-length sentences about grown-up things for an extended period of time.
While I am extremely “high-energy” (or so people tell me), this is not around-the-clock energy. Therefore, I cannot be a full-time mother all day and then “moonlight” in some creative capacity working from home. Once I get the girls fed (for the 5th+ time in a day), bathed and in bed, I am wrecked. Exhausted. Done. I will be working to get up early to tap my morning energies, which are usually vast, but Baby #2 is on the downward slide into her first birthday and STILL does not sleep through the night…
I will admit this post is also coming at a point where I am wondering just how and when to reenter the workforce. And when you live all day alone inside your head, you start to grow doubt and irrational fears about your own abilities and worth. Have never HAD to give up my newest baby to daycare, I wish I could. But I know that when I finally do, I will be wrought with guilt and self-loathing for a time, until I see how much good it is doing her and me. And a happier mama is a better mama.
