I have been losing my patience this week. Not in that it’s hard to wait in line at the
grocery store kind of way… more in that my blood is boiling, steam is coming
out of my ears like Donald Duck’s, I’m going to say something I regret or hurt
someone I love kind of way. I hate that
I feel this way. When it happens Sephus and I bicker in front of the kids. I huff and puff as Avery takes ten minutes to
get out of the car when we get to school.
I give in to Tessa’s mastermind ways of getting what she wants (as I
type this I am lying in the bottom bunk because of hysterical screams over
growing pains and thunder). I use this
creepy phony sacharrin sweet voice around my personal and school children, or I
snap and I say things like this, “Use your inference skills like a good reader
would; do I look like I want my rules to be tested today?”
After
grumpiness and reflection inspired by a friend checking in who is more
thoughtful than she needs to be I realized that I am suffering from a general
sense of not being able to find my daily “piece of quiet.” My mom had a book entitled “Just Give Me a
Little Piece of Quiet: Daily Getaways for a Mom’s Soul” that sat (maybe sits)
in her bathroom. I realize that my body,
heart, mind and soul are crying out for this very thing, and yet my personal
choices make achieving this sooo very hard.
I have this desperate desire to be everything to everyone. I am not sure where this need to please and
impress comes from. I imagine it is what
I got much praise for over the years, and I slowly embraced it as my identity. I also think that I like a busy mind. I like to feel like I squeezed the most out
of every day in the same way a person likes to stack coupons at the grocery
store. I feel like I pulled one over on
someone. I think of my Grandma Rubin comparing
me to my Great Aunt Stella who also did too much and apparently liked to say,
“it is better to burn out than to rust out.”
Unfortunately, she burnt out way too early. This is a reminder to strive for balance - and for my piece of quiet… my room of my
own if you will.
It is hard
for me to find quiet in my own home. The
kids have trouble falling asleep so my pre-bed post-mothering for the day “me
time” is continuously growing shorter – especially with the new 7 o'clock start
time at work this year. The way our
house is set up, their bedrooms are near the activity, and they yell for us
when they should sleep. I struggle with
clutter which makes rooms feel noisy even when they are quiet. I think this is why I crave movie theaters
over Netflix on my couch and TV in hotel rooms instead of sightseeing at
times. I think this is also why I like
going “home” so much. My mom’s house is
meticulously clean and there are other people there willing to love and care
for the kids. I feel a freedom when I
step through those doors that makes me so thankful and that makes it so hard to
get in the car and drive back to more chaos with less adults. I felt so homesick as I pulled away last
Sunday.
It is hard
for me to find quiet in my mind. I lay
in bed wondering if anyone has signed up for the middle school writing conference
yet. I wonder if all the papers are in
needed to complete our taxes. I wonder
where my interview files are for my dissertation. I wonder what’s for dinner tomorrow.
It is hard
for me to find quiet in the car. I never
travel without one of the kids now.
Drives across town are ripe for making calls to businesses for silent
auction donations, to frantically schedule an appointment, or here lately, to
check in with family members over various life changes we are facing.
It is
incredibly hard to find quiet at work.
My classroom is a disaster. I am
terrible at keeping a clean room, and now that four other teachers share it
(all teachers that have to rush in from and out to somewhere else quickly at
the start and end of class) it is a disaster.
Boxes of books randomly appear in it from God knows where. I have about 500 more books than I have
shelves for. On top of that, reading
kids are not known for having executive skills so I am always finding grade
reports and homework assignments for other classes. My new containers of pens and pencils are
constantly rummaged through. Things I
need go missing. Also, I have to leave
most days as soon as my meetings end so I have no quiet time in my classroom to
get mentally and physically ready for the next day. Work feels like one more place where I can
only focus on the immediate and have to count being one step ahead of myself as
success.
Because I
have been seeking my quiet in less than ideal places, going silent at the end
of the day when Sephus wants to talk, burying myself in the thoughtlessness of
surfing Facebook, Pinterest, etc., and not calling/visiting with friends as
often as I would like, I am instead going to weed out the chaos, in hopes that
I have energy to embrace real or imagined quietness in my life during my end of
the day me time. This blog post serves
as my public commitment to doing the following:
1)
Setting the timer for ten minutes after the kids
are in bed each school night to declutter.
2)
Refusing to get in bed until lunches are made
and clothes are laid out for the day so that I can get to work on time no matter how tired I am.
3)
Spending ten minutes each morning cleaning my
classroom no matter what else I have to do.
4)
Drinking 22 ounces of water each morning before
my soda. (Clarity of mind right?)
5)
Doing whatever it takes to get bookcases in my
classroom as soon as possible! (Can you
help? Anyone? Anyone?)
6)
Working out three times a week as my me
time.
7)
Always have a current book being read.
8)
Counting five blessings before bed each night.
I KNOW I have a blessed life. Days like today make that more clear than
ever. I know I will miss these hands on days of parenting someday. I know that my husband is amazing despite my occasional short fuse, and
I am lucky to have him. I know that I
bring on my own chaos and deserve NO sympathy.
But I also know that I do not want to burn out, and there is strength in
solidarity. So - do me a favor. Keep me in check. Ask me how this plan is going. Tell me how you make it work. (Or are you all just faking it like me?)
