I Am Not Thriving (All of the Time)

The thing that makes me bananas about motherhood and work is we’re supposed to pretend we’ve got it all.

For me it’s five times that way due to the way my divorce went. If I dared to admit I wasn’t perfect I was terrified of it being used against me. Picture perfect images were all I felt I was allowed to post. I even once shared a post about burnout among women and was told by my law student boyfriend at the time “YOU CAN’T POST THAT!”

Well why the HELL not?!

Truthfully, I am in the best place of my life EVER. My kids are making great grades in school, have friends, and are happy. I have the sweetest one year old who is just a light in all of their lives. I’m living in this amazing home and am making it more mine every day. I have a job that fulfills me and I’m finding my place in church ministry. I have control over my anxieties.

Life is the best it’s ever been.

Does that mean it’s perfect? No. Am I always thriving? Of course not! Y’all so often I’m just out here surviving… fueling up on caffeine as much as I can just to make it to the end of the day and crashing down into my bed. Which, by the way, is very often unmade.

But I do find joy in small moments. There’s a recent Washington Post article about it calling it “joy snacking”. I read it and said OMG THAT IS ME!!

I am the worst over loader ever. I’m starting a PhD program in the fall. I’ll (hopefully) still be teaching. Parenting three kids. Still running my business. On and on…. but I can find true joy in the small moments. I can go on a walk and breathe in the air. I can treat myself to some yoga when I need it. I have learned to recognize when I need a break. I have a community of people I have developed at work and church and with friends- and I have found time for them in my life.

One thing I’ve learned in my weekly meetings with my minister is just how important community is- how it’s key to everything. Some of this really came to light when I was at a track meet for my daughter this weekend and another parent became aggressive with her. I wasn’t there, but given the ugly manner in which this parent spoke about my child later… to my face… I believe what my daughter told me. You may wonder, how does this relate to community?

One of the things this parent said was my child was an example of what is wrong with this country and we need to get back to the days when other parents can admonish another’s child. I sat there and took it, and look five years ago me would NOT have, so clearly God has been working on me. But I really was just overcome with a sense of sadness for this woman. She’s someone whose child performed beautifully at this track meet, and we talked about that as well. I could have learned so much from her but instead, rather than acting in community with me, she acted in hate. And I can’t help but wonder how much she must be hurting to have been so set off by my child. (The offending incidence was that my daughter was on the field and yelled out “damn!” when she saw a spider near her… the other parent admonished her from the above stands and my child apologized, but the other parent continued to harass her. There were witnesses to the event.)

There is a loss of community now in this moment, or rather of the potential for community. Perhaps had this parent and I already known each other, it would not have gone down this way. I’m not sure. But I do know I don’t feel like there can be one now, and that I can genuinely pray for this woman. I wonder if maybe the stress of mothering placed her in a poor emotional state that day, if there’s so much pressure to behave a certain way that she took it out on my daughter and I, if there’s a gap in the ability to empathize. All these things are speculation on my part, but I do know that for me at least… the growing sense of community I have is key to all of the other small joys.

I wonder if her hurt is caused by a lack of community. Of the pressure to keep up as a mom at a loss to ourselves. I don’t know.

But I can say I am praying for her- without irony, without the meanness behind so many uses of the phrase “bless her heart”. I can mean it.