I had been dreading this from the time I started out that I would just lose all my motivation to write. And what I dread most almost always seems to come true. When I started with my new blog space here, I had started out with this new zeal and enthusiasm and with a conviction in my heart to change everything that I didn’t like about myself. The main one among them was to stop finding a reason to be unhappy and find happiness in the little things around me. I started small with finding joy in watching my kids grow and keeping things simple and easy. I believed strongly in my heart that if I resolve to be happy, I will be. A friend had warned me not to get disappointed when I slip back to my old ways once the intoxication of the new place and new life dies down. And honestly that’s what happened!!
The last few months have been spent just picking up after myself and everyone that depends on me. I have never felt so low and worthless in my entire life. I have tried to keep myself upbeat and find a reason to celebrate but nothing has sustained my interest. I thought of several topics to write on, but I felt like I would betray my blog. I was not happy inside and it felt just so hypocritical. One of my core values that I strongly try to abide by is not being a hypocrite, which is extremely hard but I try to honor that at least in all the things that matter. So when I am writing this, I’d like to say it upfront that this is an attempt to get over my inhibitions. Honestly, even the words are not flowing today.
I have mentioned several times before on this blog that being a mother is humbling and exalting, disheartening and encouraging at the same time. I am writing this to reach out to all the women who are homemakers, to all the mothers and especially to other mothers like me who have chosen to stay back home after they have had kids. I am not saying that I will do that permanently and truthfully I am not sure how long I might be a stay at home.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and wish it would be a day when I had to go to work. The nervous excitement of what lies ahead at work really gives you the rush and the energy to hurry through all the insurmountable obstacles and get everything started off on the right note at the beginning of the day. You feel wanted and you feel important. You feel like what you are about to do is something that makes a difference and mainly something that gets APPRECIATION. Yes the key word is appreciation. I have noticed that I could pull 2 or 3 “almost all-nighters” at a stretch at work and still not be frustrated, because at the end of those exhausting work days, I was filled with a sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT. Also at the end of these really long work hours you always got your fair share of appreciation … at least in most cases. Thankfully I never had to deal with my hard work getting completely ignored at work and I am extremely grateful for that. When I came back home from a long day at work, I still had the mental energy to switch roles and take care of everything at home. Of course, physically I was completely depleted, which was the reason why I decided to stay back home after my second kid.
However, my mornings now are never about self importance anymore. Ideally, I know that people who have not been in these shoes will argue that …”hey you can make your day matter”. The truth is .. that YES ..Whatever it is that I do now … does matter MUCH more than what I did at work. Maybe it does not matter to the world, BUT it does matter to MY WORLD. They simply don’t have a way of conveying it to me in a organized “priorities form or a quarterly review form”. They do convey it to me in little little expressions that make me feel like it’s worth it.
So, getting back to my mornings!! Now when I wake up, I am almost filled with a fear of what I will miss doing today that will end up adding to my repertoire of failures. There are days and nights that are spent tending and caring to a sick child but then there is no sense of accomplishment anymore, because there is always a few things that I’d have screwed up which only I will be able to repair and worse still, I’d have to hear at the end of all my hard work that I could have handled all this stress more calmly or in a better way. I find that as a homemaker everything you do matters, getting the kids and the husband ready for school/work/play, Cooking, Cleaning, Organizing, Washing everything matters. The difference is … everything you do right almost never gets noticed or appreciated but if there is a single thing that is amiss or a single thing that you failed to pick up, it glares at everyone and screams for attention. No matter how much you do, it is never never enough!!
Lack of appreciation and the lack of a sense of accomplishment really kill your motivation to do things whole heartedly. I am not saying that I don’t enjoy being a stay at home mother anymore. What I am saying is that I would have enjoyed it more if I didn’t beat myself up about doing everything right and feel so dejected when I eventually don’t meet my goals. I wish I would just stop believing how faulty I am and focus on all the things that I do right. I would have been a lot happier if I didn’t bog myself down with the several criticisms that come my way and just pay attention to all the love and attention my kids shower me with. A cousin’s kid once mentioned to me that my mommy never plays with me, she is always busy doing housework. I tried to explain to her that mommy has a hard job of keeping this house together and if she didn’t finish all her housework it would be impossible to live in the house. I realized that my purpose of staying back home to take care of the kids and be there for them is practically not being fulfilled because I was being hard on myself trying to keep up with all the chores in the house and ignoring my purpose of taking the role of a home maker. I struggle to keep my house looking clean of all the teeming toys that keep multiplying exponentially. I spend my energy cooking and cleaning and forcing my kids to take a bite of all the gourmet food they don’t want to even look at. The truth from whatever I hear from others is, this is the story of almost every mother or homemaker. We all try so hard to build a façade for the world to depict a perfectly well run household. But yet when we see other homes functioning so seemingly perfectly, we choose to ignore the fact that we also work hard to render a similar picture to others who view our homes. I have overlooked the KISS(Keep it simple stupid) rule that I had decided on abiding by. In the end my kids get no more attention from me than I would have given them if I was gone for a long day of work AND in the end I don’t get significantly much more work done that I would perhaps have if I was still working.
I want to put an end to this. I really do. And I really wish if you are a mother or a home maker like me you would too. I have realized that I am not going to get any flowery appreciation from anyone concerned for raising my kids well or keeping my house together. Yet it is my job and I will continue to do it to the best of my abilities. I have concluded that I will henceforth just take care of everything that is really important and things that can wait will wait. I will try to pick my battles more carefully. I will spend my positive energy on things that matter the most and most importantly once again try to be HAPPY about the simple things that I normally enjoy.
