tight spots. tight ropes. walking the line.
I’m in this spot.
Of sorts.
Tired of me.
Tired of wrestling with the same issues.
An addiction to control. A desire to run the show. The thought that I’m the master of my own universe.
A person unable to portion my time wisely. Unable to avoid poor time management decisions that cost both me and my family peace of mind and rest and all those things that actually matter to me.
Night after night I’m surprised to see it’s nearly midnight and I didn’t find time all day long to read or to finish my list or to write a blog post or to pay a bill or to call a friend.
The list just keeps growing from one page to two and I keep stacking chores and jobs and ideas somewhere in my brain until all the thoughts tumble together in a sloppy heap and I can’t tell the end from the beginning.
It always feels as if the answer is more time. More hours in the day.
I know that is a lie.
But I’m sitting here. In the wee hours. Laundry in a collapsing mountain. The same empty bowl sitting on the kitchen counter for the past three days with the cookbook opened beside it because I was going to bake banana bread but haven’t made the time. The winter jackets shoved in a loose stack in the foyer for two weeks waiting for someone anyone to carry them upstairs to await the next cold season.
I know I cannot create more hours in any day.
I cannot generate more years in my life.
But I keep struggling with the question and the struggle of determining how to spend the hours and the days I have in the best way possible.
It’s a tightrope we are all walking – a tightrope particularly familiar to the feet of mothers everywhere. Familiar to the toes of multi-taskers and many-hat-wearers like myself.
Have you found a key, a rabbit hole, a steadying weight, that works for you in the season in which you currently find yourself?
2 Comments
laceykeigley
Thank you so much Lana – for lurking AND for commenting!
Your words are wise and kind and I truly appreciate them. – Being literally AT home is vital if I want to keep my home running smoothly. And chores have been a lifesaver here too and I thank you for the reminder to be steady at having the kids do them routinely.
And – I certainly DO need to keep my list shorter – it is self-defeating to know it is an impossible list to complete.
Again – thanks so much for taking the time to thoughtfully comment – that really means so much to me.
Lana
A lurker but I have never a commented here. I have been where you are. As a 53 year old whom God has so much delivered from the in charge, control everyone life I used to live, I can tell you there is SO much joy in just letting it go. I do know where you are. I home schooled 5 children for 23 years and that does breed a need to be in control of everyone and everything. About 5 years ago God showed me in a big way that I was just flat out selfish. I had to have everything my own way and done just the way I liked it or not at all. I am so thankful that God showed me my sin but oh how I wish it had been so much sooner. I wasted so much of my life being stressed out and stressing out my family by having to control it all.
My answer for getting things done was delegating chores to the children and not allowing them to begin school until they were done. Their natural competitiveness kept them motivated. They did not do perfect jobs by any means but I could not do it all. I realize that children do need free time but they also need to work within the family because they are part of the family. Also, I set up schedules for myself that I really adhered to and the laundry was always done after that. Now that my children are grown I am still at home and I have to all of it myself which is a lot of work everyday. The realization that most of my chores really do not take a huge amount of time was freeing. So I have clean the bathroom on my list for today. How long does that really take? Maybe 10 minutes honestly. In my mind I tend to make more of jobs than they really are. Just getting to it is 90% of the battle. I do have a list everyday and I feel highly motivated to cross of all the items daily but I try not to have more than 8 or 10 items on that list daily. I also just have to be home if I am going to keep up. I am blessed to not have to work outside of my home so I need to be responsible in my work here in my home daily. I am certainly not saying that everything is always done and that I feel 100% on top of things but I hope these thoughts will be helpful to you.