and we're off

The kids are back in school.  Basically a National Holiday.  I’m celebrating a very important independence - Mine. 

Cue the ball drop, a promising midnight kiss, and an ambitious All The Things I’m Going to Do list that rivals that of the President.  My world feels pregnant with potential. I’m in the bring it on mindset. I’ve gone mad. Delusional.  Temporarily blinded by the teeny tiny sense of mom freedom that comes as the calendar flips to fall.  

In my brain, it goes something like this:  I’ll start by renovating the house, learning Spanish, and teaching more yoga. I’ll write a book, get in the best shape of my life, clean out my garage and the storage unit (for sure the storage unit). I’ll cook dinner every night, push back my cuticles, wash my hair more, and get 8 hours of sleep. I’ll start that side hustle that I know should become a real thing. I’ll call (and make definite plans with) the friends I haven’t seen in months, zero out my Inbox, finish my Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving, tackle my photo library and make an iMovie of our summer ‘22 adventures.  

I’ll find Me again. The person swallowed whole by Motherhood. And summer. 

The illusion is both hilarious and critical.

I know in my gut that it’s all bs, but it feels so good to indulge it. To drink the kool-aid. To buy into the fantasy.  It’s like putting aloe on a sunburn, it just feels good; if it actually works is besides the point (it does).  Because when you’re a mom and you survive summer, you feel like a freaking parade should start marching down the street carrying banners with your name on it.  It feels (it is) heroic.

After my kids hopped out of the car for the first day of school all pigtailed and backpacked, bundles of “fresh start” energy, I drove away, expecting guttural squeals to come out of my body (let’s be real here). But instead I was frozen, zombie eyed. Sorta numb. I looked around for the standing ovation, the crown, the satin white sash, the fully bloomed roses and confetti. Crickets.

My reward? Time. I have 2 kids in school, more than a handful of hours in front of me. 

Oh, the possibilities!  I should not only be ticking off the above “to do” list at warp speed, I should also get a job.  A paying one. Because that’ll make it count. Do more, produce, achieve, earn. Efficiency! Productivity! Whatever you are be a better version of that. It’s the messaging we are hit with from all sides.

We’re friends, so I’m gonna tell you what’s actually happening.  

We’ve had 3ish weeks of school but have barely strung together 5 consecutive days thanks to religious holidays, hurricanes, you know, Life. Out of the gates we’ve had a jerky, fragmented sorta ride. Not enough time to build up momentum or consistency (me or the kids) but enough to feel itchy by the fact that it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve spent a bit of those days at school sipping coffee with other parents, listening to our leaders. Interested. Involved.

I’ve also spent my time organizing their after school lives, weekends, and what to do during those looming long winter and spring breaks.  Doctors, dentists, haircuts, food in the fridge, clothes in the closet.  Things Moms Do.  

What started as this beautiful block of Carrara marble time, meant to be expertly chiseled away at by me in creation of my David, has been hacked at by a dull blade. By reality. By the fact that it’s enough time for me to clean up the smoothie cups and English muffin crumbs of the morning, make beds, sprain strawberry stains out of school uniforms, shower (without washing my hair), get dressed and grocery shop before getting in the pick up line.  I haven’t deleted one blurry photo from my camera reel or written a single sentence towards that book. 

I was waiting to feel really volcanic about this. Like explosive on the inside. Not the kind you actually let anyone know about or speak about out loud in the real world (heavens no). I kept waiting and it didn't come. That hostile eruption I kept anticipating. It’s been the opposite of what I expected. I’m feeling calm, good, peaceful within the turbulence. Within the “it’s not going the way I thought.”

Because that start of school do-it-all-now frenzy I spin myself into?  It always happens. It’s as predictable as my craving for chocolate cake after dinner. It’s built into my DNA somewhere and likely yours, too. We set these crazy, unrealistic goals and expectations for ourselves and then, when we don’t hit the mark, the trash talking, judgmental a-hole that sits on your shoulder (we all have one) starts beating you down. Rinse and repeat.

I let the wave of mania come and like all things, it too passed.  It leaves me pretty quickly these days because I remember that the most important work I am doing happens in Motherhood. In raising humans. My children.  They are not a box to be checked and completed.  Not a task to solve, correct, change, make right. Motherhood isn’t that. It’s not about fixing or finding solutions. It is messy and deep and hard and constant. It is endless and ongoing, it’s every color, shade and gradient. 

That’s why I sometimes crave things that fit into boxes. Something easier, neat and tidy. Clean.  A beginning and an end, when you can declare yourself successful.  I did it!  Yay for me! Moms don’t get that.  We are the grist for the mill - the essential ingredient for transformation. For our lives, and theirs. It’s so big no paycheck could cover it. That’s why it’s also absolutely terrifying.

What I’m feeling now, as I sit here past my bedtime, thinking about you and me, beginnings and fresh starts, is that we don’t have to wait for anyone else to give us a pat on the back, a paycheck, a parade. We must give it to ourselves and each other. Look at every box you have checked in life, look at what you are doing every day, all day, 365. Look into the faces of your kids. Of the people you call family, the kind you were born into or made yourself.

Nothing feels as good as remembering that everything you seek already lives inside of you.

It always has, but sometimes it gets muddled in between snack making, gymnastic lessons, halloween costumes and bedtime routines. It gets lost. Our job is to remind each other that life is not about checking boxes and getting to the end. It’s about the messy magic along the way.