Traveling; Carry On

From the sounds of it, there was a lot of melting down happening in my circle of parenting friends. One parenting truth: if you're having a tough time, you're not the only one. This essay arrived last night from one of my favorite and hardest working mother-mentors. I love the idea that parenting wisdom is often hard earned. We are all coffee drinking, carpooling, multitasking Phoenixes rising from the dust of yesterday's lessons. - BTH   

I am totally tapped out tonight and it is only 8:30 p.m. If I am honest I was tapped out when I woke up at 4 am this morning to help a little go to the bathroom. But at 4 am I vowed to myself that I would not wake up tired. I would steal more sleep and when 7 rolled around I would be spry. I am a firm believer in being aware of my thoughts and how they affect my reality. So I tossed away that voice that said, "Wow are you tired," and replaced it with the voice I still have three more hours of sleep if I am lucky and that equates itself to a glorious nap. I am mostly an advocate of listening to what our bodies are telling us and honoring them, but I knew this might not serve me best today so I relished the idea that I was taking a three hour nap, after going to bed extremely late the night before and solo parenting because my sweet is out of town traveling for work.

I am coming off my first time of being away from my kids since I started having them over 8 years ago. I have traveled a ton, but always with them, or one, or one inside of me and another on a hip. I love traveling. I love traveling with my family. If I could I would do so every six weeks or so. I have traveling with them down to a science, one bag, pack only necessities, and plan to do a load of laundry when the need arises. When I travel solo, I bring just a carry on, I love traveling light. I love keeping the weight I bring with me simple. I admit I am the type of parent that loves having my pawprints all over my boys, and this being said, I also resist the temptation of helicopter parenting. (Pre babes I worked at colleges and universities from the east coast to the west and witnessed first hand the damage a hovering parent can do. Not to mention the need for a new position to evolve called Dean of Parents, yep, it's true, it exists, but that is a post for another time.) 

No, I am the type of parent who after an early miscarriage, and then two years of not being able to get pregnant, feel astoundingly grateful for the abundant blessings four boys in less than six years brings to my life. But the week away from all of them, where I immersed myself in learning more about energetic medicine and healing while being with close girlfriends in the mountains we once called home feed my soul in ways I hadn't known it needed. I was able to do this because I have an incredible husband, who is my dearest friend and a loving hands on father. He stayed home. He simplified his work week. He stuck to the schedule and did not add to it, even when I offered to arrange play dates and such for him, guised as an effort to help him. I was also able to do it because I am blessed with amazing girlfriends who reached out to us and offered help if need be, a buoyed safety net beneath us and our family. 

I am also someone who believes fiercely that we need to live to be our best selves and if I want my boys to do this, I need to do so as well. And so becoming the grander versions of ourselves that God calls us to I feel is a lifelong commitment, much like marriage and raising kids. So when dream jobs come along like building wind and solar farms, and I see my husband yearn to do this, I encourage it, even if it means moving for us (not always easy, but amazing), a lot of travel for him, and by default us either without him at times, or going with him (which I love). This week he had an unexpected trip, and I began to have a moment today where I was outside of myself watching how I fill my hours. Since it was an unexpected trip, instead of rethinking my week I persisted onward. I did not let go of the things I could have let go of, because I just wasn't aware enough to do so until it was too late. In short, I did not keep life simple when Peter was away, and have paid the price for it tonight. I was the traveler that bought all the "just in cases" and had to pay for my bag being over the weight limit: I accommodated my parents, I served hot lunch, I ran out to get the needed snow boots--I hadn't anticipated needing until I awoke to snow. None of these individual things is a lot, but together they add up when your solo. I heard my ECFE teacher in my head saying, "Do what is best for the family unit, not the individual." And then thought back to two weeks ago when I was gone and heard how Peter was happy to just be with the boys, and how he turned down any of the extras only doing the necessities: school, meals, naps, and play. Wow, such wisdom. Keeping it simple. He did not add play dates, or undo errands, he did not add volunteer activities, or guests for dinner even if they are extended family. He just pulled in the reigns tight and slowed his pace making being together fun and manageable. 

Sometimes insight has to be hard earned. And, mine while I realized Peter had kept it simple and the beauty in that simplicity when I returned to a happy house of boys. I did not know I had complicated my week until I did not keep it simple and ended up yelling at the kids as bedtime twisted and turned into a multi hour affair. I was that passenger on the plane trying to stuff her grossly over stuffed suitcase into the overhead compartment with beads of sweat on her brow cursing under my breath convinced I could make it all fit. I hate when I yell. I hate losing my temper. It does not happen often, but I grew up with boiling tempers all around me, and I despise the old haggard pattern. I wish to eradicate it. I hate thinking about the trauma it imprints on littles and I hate the exhaustion I feel afterward. I hate the self loathing that happens because I did not rise to overcome my frustration, and just take a time out to regain my focus and calm in the moment. This all being said is I am putting myself to bed early because I need the rest, and the fresh mind and heart in the morning. And, tomorrow I vow to keep life simpler, especially going forth when Peter travels, only doing our schedule and not adding to it. There is beauty in simplicity and I am embracing it, packing only the essentials and carrying on. 

And as my dear mother friend, Brigid, reminded me tonight, "It's a new day tomorrow." And she is in good company As Ralph Waldo Emerson implores: "Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is anew day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays."

OR

New Every Morning

Every day is a fresh beginning,

Listen my soul to the glad refrain.

And, spite of old sorrows

And older sinning,

Troubles forecasted

And possible pain,

Take heart with the day and begin again.

-Susan Coolidge

Thank God.