My Days are Ours Again

My class (that I teach) ends tonight. I have everything (that's been turned in thus far) graded. I have my email for the morning ready to go. The only obligations I have left for this class will be taken care of just after sunrise tomorrow morning. I cannot convey how freeing this is. The kind of freeing that makes you feel lighter and more full of life!

Don't misunderstand--I'm certainly thankful that I have a way to provide financially for my family. I'm happy to help out. I enjoy shopping for cute kid clothes, craft supplies, and organic/real food too much to say that I could easily live without the extra income. But I also enjoy just being a mom.

And by "just," I don't mean that mothering is so simple a task. No! What I mean is that my brain can "just" focus on being a mom because I do not do well when I have several major issues to focus on. After almost 30 (no, not quite, but we're getting close folks) years on this earth, I've learned that I am easily overwhelmed by big commitments. And having "just" one major focus is how I function most efficiently. Your definition and my definition of "easily overwhelmed" may be different, but to me it seems that I can't have too many things up in the air, so to speak, or I become miserable. Because I dwell--Yep, I'm a dweller. And then I dwell, and dwell, and dwell some more until my head spins and I become a hot mess.

A HOT!
SOBBING!
MESS...

as noted by several family and friends this past week who all saw me as a hot, sobbing mess because I was completely and totally overwhelmed.

When I can cross one of my up in the air issues off the list in my head, the burden I carry feels so much lighter. I know this may not sound like a revelation to many of you-- in fact, I agree it's pretty simplistic. First grade math, really. 10 things (up in the air, floating around in my head) minus one (huge and time consuming task) equals 9 things (up in the air, floating around in my head). Which translates into an obviously lighter burden to carry during my days.

But for some reason, the working from home gig feels more like 85% of my burden. It weighs me down. There is so much emotion wrapped up in one tiny job. A job that, again, I'm thrilled to have yet I kinda loathe it as well.

There is so much guilt tied to this job. Well, I suppose really it's tied to me, but I'm tied to my job--so it works. Anyway, it's hard to define yourself when you are a stay-at-home mom who also works from home. And we all know what happens to people who don't know or perhaps lose their identity---well, I don't know, but I do know it's messy.

I don't lead the life of a typical stay-at-home parent, nor do I lead the typical working parent life either. Thus, I feel horrible for not providing in the way I wish I could. I yearn to be a mother first and foremost. I have five, almost six kids for a reason. I adore each and every one of them. I want to put my all into them. I want the love I feel for them to seep out of my eyes and cover them for eternity--in case it wasn't clear.

This leaves me riddled with icky, self-loathing, I'm not good enough feelings. And these feelings only add to the time and responsibility burden that come with the job. I know working from home while raising a family sounds like the ideal job--I did start doing it for the obvious reasons--money coming in--no day care expenses--I still get to raise my kids. But nothing is ever as simple as it first appears, right?

Luckily, I really don't have that much guilt toward my work. I know several working moms who feel guilty about what they're putting into their job due to the responsibilities that come with raising children.  But, I feel like I put in a ton of hours, and I really don't care for the job that much. It's not inspiring like I always dreamed my teaching job would be. My sole purpose is to provide feedback on papers and assign them a grade. There's none of those famous "ah-ha" moments that nearly every teacher in the typical classroom can experience on any given day (though I know those can be few and far between). I hardly know my students, so I have no close bonds to tend to. There's no camaraderie among the faculty--hell, I don't really even know any other TA's. You get my point--I work because there are dollar signs associated with it--not because I feel something for anything or anybody related to that job.

On the other hand, I feel an immense amount of guilt with the kids. I try to only grade papers while they are sleeping, but on any given day there is somebody in my house not sleeping during naps. So then I'm left with either ignoring my kids or staying up until the early morning hours to grade. I often have to choose to turn on the television or send them outside to play while I work. And this is only if Scrunchie is asleep. If she's awake, there's no chance for me to concentrate long enough or well enough to grade a paper with any real fairness.

And then I think...  I would never send my kids to a daycare where they are forced to watch t.v. so that the sitter can work on her other job!
Yes, I enjoy torturing myself.

Enter: GUILT!

I have been known to say things like Please just give mommy one more second/5 more minutes/10 more minutes/etc to finish up and then I'll be right with you. 

or

I asked you to go play outside so that I could finish this one last paper; please do so.

or


Not now, honey, mommy's busy.

I'm sure several moms can relate to the last line. I often say this when I'm in the middle of changing a diaper and somebody wants a snack. Or I'm in the middle of cooking and somebody wants me to color with them. But I'm more okay with saying "not now" in those scenarios for some reason. I suppose it is because those tasks all feel interrelated and the consequences are immediate and very real. If I'm busy cooking a meal they're about to eat and I can't color with them, then the guilt isn't really that much since I'm still providing for them in a very tangible manner. 

But if I have to tell them that last line because I'm working to earn money to provide clothes on their backs and a roof over their head, I feel the guilt. Why I separate the two issues, I'm not completely sure. But I can only guess it's because I value and identify much more with mothering in the immediate and concrete sense of the word than in the abstract sense of the word. For instance, I value putting a meal on the table in the literal sense--what I'm cooking they will soon be consuming.  But, for whatever dumb reason, I do not value the more abstract idea of earning money which eventually puts a meal on the table. I'm providing by cooking and by making money, but in my head these two things are not equal. They aren't even separate but equal. The latter is much lower on the totem pole than the former.

At least this is how I make sense of it all. I don't think this is right or wrong ... it just is. It's the way my overwhelmed brain works. I wish I could see the value in my working from home, but it's not as easy as seeing the disappointment in their faces when I tell them we can't do something that I'd be doing as a normal SAHM if I didn't have to put in time at work during the day as well.

So, I'm taking some time off from work. Thank God, some things fell into place recently so that we can afford for me to take off some time and concentrate on my family. I'm full of motivation to go have fun. All the kid-friendly places that I usually don't like going to for whatever reason are now suddenly calling our name. School will let out in the next month and then my kids are all mine again. I realize I'm fantasizing about the adventures we'll encounter and that reality may look a little more dull, but that's okay. I know I'll be entering the third trimester during the hot summer months. I've done the big in the summer pregnancy three times before, but I can still dream. If anything, we'll do lots of playing in the water in our own yard. However it works out, I'm just absolutely thrilled that I can focus on the girls, Matt, our new baby, a garage sale, and friends--items listed are in no particular order

{SMILE}!