08.21.07
What’s important in life?
This morning, as I was working out, (actually just barely breaking a sweat) I was pondering what my soon to be free time will be filled with. As we get closer to school starting I’ll again be at home by myself (a wonderful thought!). Because I will be on ‘vacation’ for a while I’ve finished all the auctions on EBAY and put a notice up that any orders will be shipped on September 4th. This small thing, the typing of these few words, has given me a release I was not expecting. No yarn dying, no sock knitting, no deadlines or trips to the post office. What happened next was unexpected….the question popped into my mind while I was working on the ab reduction devise (also known as sit ups)….what is important in MY life?
Is dying yarn important, is making socks important, is knitting, accumulating fleece, carding wool and spinning important? Is mastering the techniques needed to operate my flat bed knitters important?
OR….is a clean house, meals that are actually thought out and made taking more than 30 minutes important? Is all the laundry washed, folded and (gasp) ironed and hung important? Is the fact that we can walk the 60 steps to the garden and harvest our dinner important? Is trips to the beach, river and park important? Is scrapbooking all those pictures of my children’s accomplishments so they can look back fondly at piles of scrapbooks and see they did have a ‘good’ childhood important? Hmmmm….
I’ve found that there are actually two ways of thinking about the above issues. What is necessary for the health of my mind and soul, (that would be all the items in the first paragraph). What is important in the lives of my family (that would be the second paragraph).
I think I need to find a happy medium between what I want to DO and what I NEED to do as a stay at home Mom. So the answer to ‘what is important in life’ is not an easy one. If it was just me, alone I could do whatever I wanted, have 29 cats and never leave the house and be buried in partially completed knit projects and bags of dirty wool fleeces.
But it is not just me. I am a mom and wife. I have ‘responsibilities’ and things that have to get done. I’ve chosen (well my health does not permit me working actually) to stay at home and the DH has chosen to have me here. Yes, I am a kept woman and do feel guilty, frequently, about the state of my house (messy) and laundry (unfolded in piles in the laundry room) garden (weedy and not planted this spring) meal plans (what are those?) I’ve indulged myself for the past 6 months doing basically whatever I’ve wanted, knit, spun, felted, dyed….to hell about those other things. Maybe I’m in a kind of a mid life crises (I thought I’d passed that with the tattoo, maybe not!).
For 26 years I’ve taken care of the 5 other members in the family….the past 4 months have been my time and I’ve selfishly protected my time in my ‘fortress of solitude’, my studio. But I’ve neglected the family. A happy medium, that is what I need. I’m not sure weather that means having a ‘work’ schedule and a ‘mother’ schedule and doing house and yarn on specific days. The whole idea of tackling the house and ‘chores’ seems daunting. I would much rather be dying yarn and knitting.
What is important in MY life? All the above things are, some are necessary for my sanity and some are necessary for my life. So today, as I make phone calls setting up plumbers, electricians and rain gutter people, I’ll think about what I’m doing and how to mesh these two important parts of my life together so everything gets done.
Someone said the most difficult job in the world is that of a Mother. I second that notion!