Glittery, Feathery Mess

A dear friend called yesterday and I felt badly for her...mostly, because I know what it's like.

She just had one question, "Do I need better time management?"

She's a wife, a mother, a small business owner and a wonderful human being to lots and lots of people in her life.

And I wanted to scream, "Absolutely, not.  You're organized, self-sufficient, beyond capable, kind, and generous both with your time and resources to so many."  Instead, I just listened.  I know what it feels like to be barely hanging on.

Most of the night it rained and by 4:30am when the alarm went off, I thought, no...not today...even though, I knew that I was shooting myself in the foot.  I'm usually more exhausted when I don't do something physical first thing.

But I wanted to sleep.  I wanted to feel sorry for all of the places where I come up short.  And I just didn't want to have to "do" another thing.  And so, I didn't.  I turned the coffee pot on and drank a big, hot cup of java in the dark and it was delightful.

After the big kids got out the door, I started to think about my friends and how it makes sense that there's this whole world of life coaches, therapists, yoga, poetry circles,  Facebookland, retreat centers, positive affirmations and mantras...we're trying to do everything, all the time, really well.

How did that happen?

Have we always been that way?

Why?  What does it say about you if you say, "Sorry, not today," or "Can't help you out," or "No thanks, not interested."

Does it make us awful mothers, bad people, selfish, self-absorbed? As opposed to the exhausted, irritable, stretched too thinly, rigid, mean people who treat the ones we care about the most horribly because we're fed up and tired.

Today, I had every intention of taking my 3-year old to the Children's Museum.  Instead, she wanted to paint with lots of glitter, feathers, and puffy stickers.  I wanted to drink coffee and eat potato chips. It worked out well.  We didn't judge each other.  We let the other one be.  We engaged when we wanted to and gave each other space to do our thing in the process.  It was lovely.

I'm giving up the fight.  I can't be all things right now.  It's not only that it's not fair to others...it's primarily, not fair to me.

Instead, I think I'll just enjoy the glittery, feathery mess that so aptly describes where I'm at.