Living the Dream

There are a pile of dishes in the sink waiting for me to scrub off the gunk of past meals frantically created from a meager stock of supplies, making it glaringly clear that a grocery trip is past due. A pile of laundry lingers in the bedroom doorway, threatening me with an impending Great Laundry Avalanche of 2015. Toys are strewn across the room from Vi’s favorite game: let’s dump everything on the floor and then run away to play with something I’m not supposed to.

Although I have only been a parent for just over a year, it has completely turned my life upside down. It is overwhelming in every way—physically, emotionally, financially. Every question has a million possible answers, like some evil multiple choice test bent on driving me crazy. Should I go back to work full time? Should I continue pouring my energy into working from home? Should I buy lactose-free milk for Vi? Big and small, they are always buzzing in my head. And I know that I am not alone. If reading mom blogs has told me anything, it’s that we are all overwhelmed with this gig.

And then I remembered a trick my mom taught me. Close your eyes, take a deep breath. Now look around you with fresh eyes. Take in the big picture. Take in the smallest details. List five things you see and are happy about.

I see a home that my husband and I have made our own—700 square feet that we have affectionately dubbed our “nest.” I see pots and pans used in home cooked meals made with love. I see clothes dingy with evidence of the kind of carefree, messy play that only a child can inspire. Vi’s toys: a big stuffed horse from her father’s parents, a little wooden house from my parents, a fuzzy bunny on wheels that sends her into giggles every time she pulls it along that was a birthday gift from friends. She is a very lucky little girl to have such love in her life. Finally I look down to Vi’s sleeping face, body stretched out on the couch and her head in my lap.

I am living my dream. It isn’t perfect, and it probably will never be. Perfection is boring anyway, give me real, messy, chaotic life. It is all about keeping it in perspective. Will I live forever with a skyscraper of dirty laundry and a hurricane’s path in my apartment? Will we live solely off of the ancient saltines in the cabinet? Of course not. There will be shopping and cleaning and organizing and folding—sometime. Probably in the twenty minutes before someone is coming over (best motivator ever, am I right?). But I will stop stressing out about them and holding myself to an unreachable bar. I will stop comparing myself to parents who seem to have it all together all the dang time.  After all, the days are long but the years are short–why focus on everything you have to do instead of focusing on all that you have?

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