We’re closing the gap on five months that we’ve had this sweet little peanut in our lives.
I wish I could say that it’s been a blissful five months that I’ve handled gracefully. Or that I conquered my introduction to motherhood like a pro. Or that I’ve mastered working from home with a baby. Or that our marriage is stronger and that I changed the exact way I thought I would when I became a mother.
But I can’t say any of that.
I can say that there have been many, many blissful moments in these past five months. Ones that I’ve handled gracefully, even. And I can even say that becoming a mother was more natural for me than I ever thought it would be. And sometimes I do manage to even get a bit of work done.
But the rest is simply not true.
Our house is messier than ever before. Our marriage is an afterthought most days. Work has slipped further and further behind. The physically recovery of becoming a mother still has not completed. And I changed in pretty much exactly the opposite way that I thought I would when this tiny human entered the world.
But that’s okay.
I struggled all of the 3rd month of her existence with these things. I felt like I needed to do it all. I felt like I needed that perfect life because obviously it was possible. Obviously someone had it. Obviously I just wasn’t working hard enough. All I saw was me not being enough because someone else was. (And yet, I still don’t know who that picture perfect person that I was chasing was.)
But it was just me, not looking at the big picture.
It was me, needing to read an article like this. I was trying to do it all. Be everything to everyone. Do everything that I used to do + everything I needed to do now + more. All the time. Every second of every hour of every day of every week was dedicated to doing more.
But I couldn’t do it.
And that’s okay. It’s more than okay even. It’s good. Really good.
What exactly would that prove? What exactly would my ability to take on too much, overload my schedule, and near exhaustion only a few hours after waking do?
I can’t think of a single positive thing that it would do or prove. Nothing.
So instead, maybe it’s time to start coming to terms with not being able to do it all. At least not all at once.
I can have a clean house – it just may not be like it was before. And it may take a little longer than it used to.
I can work from home and still spend plenty of time with our tiny human – it just won’t look like it did before. The hours may be wonky and some days, the work may just have to wait.
Our marriage can be stronger. It’s going to be different than it was before. And it will take more work than it used to because we can’t focus just on each other. But it can be done.
And me? Well, it’s time I hang up my thoughts on who I should be at this stage.
It’s okay that my career goals are not nearly as important as they used to be. I need to embrace the fact that I’ve found so much happiness in something, even if it’s not what I expected it to be. I realize now that this life isn’t the life I pictured a year and a half ago, or even six months ago, but it could be so so so much better. If I would just let it.
So here’s to the struggle for balance. The things that fall behind. The dishes that need cleaning and the laundry that needs folded. And the extra time it takes me to do simple every day tasks. It’s all worth it.
Because this unexpected journey led me straight to happiness.