In These Times

I have been having some rough days lately. These are dark days when someone like me questions just about everything in her life because she realizes that she just cannot do it all. Sometimes that is hard to admit for someone like me. I want to be Superwoman and teach my children 4 different amazing curriculum, have an amazingly clean house, serve completely nutritious meals that are not poisoning my children, be super healthy and fit all the while having a smile on my face and a song in my heart, as my Aunt Julie would say.

I can attempt to be Superwoman for a while, but then the trying gets to be too much and I fall flat on my face - HARD. And it hurts a lot. That is what I am going through right now. I have fallen, gotten hurt, and am trying to figure out how the hell I am going to dust myself off and keep on trucking.

I have created this amazing life where I am at the heart and center of everything for everyone in this household, but I have also created this life where I am the heart and center of everything for everyone which means when mom falls everything seems to go to hell in a hand basket. It's a double edged sword. Especially, when it is built upon unrealistic expectations.

I cannot be Superwoman. I just cannot, but admitting that is so hard for me.  I come from a long line of women who do way too much for way too many people and then wear themselves out and are good for no one, but most especially for themselves. This same group of women  have some amazing qualities as well - they are resilient, strong willed, hell bent on getting stuff done their way in their time, they will fight for their families with everything that they have. But on the other side of the coin these women don't know when to ask for help, do way too much, and have unrealistic expectations of themselves. All of these things are found within myself as well.

I feel a bit lost in these times because my Superwoman facade was popped. Now that I am just me I don't know what I can handle. I feel frozen and stuck in my life because I feel all of these people who depend on me to deliver a certain product that I cannot deliver as just Elicia/Mom. Superwoman has been carrying me for so long. And the thing is my Superwoman facade has popped before and I have taken off her costume before for a bit only to put it back on and attempt to live her superhero life once again. I need to stop picking up the suit and trying to put it on. It doesn't fit me.

I have had so many random thoughts lately: get a part time job, get a full time job, start a book club for adult mamas, put the kids in school, keep them home, simplify our homeschool routine, keep doing the same curriculum we have been doing, keep going with the Family Management book, hire someone else (if I got a job) to do the cleaning, run away to a beach house in Wellfleet, MA all by myself and leave my husband and kids to fend for themselves here. As you can see I have had many different thoughts this past week or so. And I have had so many more some of which I would be mortified to share.

(It doesn't help either that our future here is up in the air...still. What we thought was Bob's career trajectory may have changed a bit, and we may end up going to a city that I have absolute no desire to go to, and also one that wasn't even on the radar. I thought we would have known something by now giving us some inkling of how much longer we would be here, but we are still waiting on a confirmation of some sorts  & instead we have just been given bits and pieces of news leaving me to try and piece together what our future is going to look like. It is enough to make one freaking crazy.)

I guess what it comes down to, now that my Superwoman costume blew off, is I am not sure how much responsibility I, the non-superhero, want. How much can my human body handle and how much does it want to handle? Do I want to clean my house like a superstar? Do I want to homeschool my children anymore? Do I want to go out and work part/full time? What do I want? And more importantly, what do I need to do to be able to function, sanely, at a human level? Superhero me tried to handle it all and blew up face planting  in the harsh wake up call that goes by the name of  Reality. It is hard trying to carry all that I try and tackle on my shoulders. It doesn't help either that most of the bloggers that I love are these Christian homemakers that talk about a calling and  having a happy heart at trying to do it all. That is the danger of loving blogs as much as I do. Only our best faces are put forth usually making our lives seem like one big slice of hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream on the side. And then people like me compare ourselves to those women and wonder how we can ever measure up? And when we finally realize we cannot measure up to them - nor should we aspire to because then we are not living a life authentic to ourselves - we feel guilt for wanting/needing to choose a different path.

And all the meanwhile, as I am having this life crisis (not that I can really call it that seeing that I live a life that is so unaccustomed to real hardship), I still need to feed, clean, school, and grow four children. How I am ever going to figure anything out or pick myself up off of the floor I do not know. I just want to push a pause button on my life until I figure everything out. If only life could be that easy.