I'm Slumpin' It!

Photo courtesy of tumblr.com

"Slumpin' It" is just like "Couchin' It" except that I am not John Krasinski, Internationally (I think)-Recognized Sex Symbol, I'm not smiling, and I'm not getting paid a million dollars to wear jammie pants and jump on a couch and say "I'm couchin' it!"

So, clearly, you can see the correlation.

My slumpin' seems to be so vicious at the present time that I have been sitting with this window open, doing everything I can to not write this post.  So, why do it?  Good question to which I don't really have a good answer, other than that I like to write and it helps me organize my thoughts.

The other night, I was hashing out some of my professional tribulations with a friend and he said, "Grow your roots deep.  You're shallow and wide right now."  It is only because he is my friend that I didn't cyber-slap him for calling me not only shallow but also wide.  No, seriously.  I know what he means and I completely agree.  An observation well-placed.

I feel like I'm spinning plates, which sounds like a big fat cliche coming from a mom.  So many things, up in the air and I have to run back and forth to keep it all going, but nothing ever really stops spinning, and if something falls, the whole thing kind of crashes down, too.  Oh, and I never actually learned how to spin plates.  I had to just figure it out once everyone {including myself} started demanding more of me.

When I was pregnant, and right after I had ER, I read a lot.  In one of the books, the writer referred to the "hurdle model" in conjunction with being pregnant & becoming a mom.  It's just like a runner, approaching a hurdle, getting ready to jump, and clearing it, EXCEPT... you never get your feet back on the track.  You approach, jump, clear it, and just keep hovering over the hurdles.  I found this to be genius, and in utter alignment with what I was feeling.  And I still feel it.  I'm still suspended above all those hurdles.  Imagine how many I must have flown over by now.

So, I'm spinning plates, I've got my roots spread out all shallow-like over waaaay too big an area, and I'm continuously clearing hurdles.  I should be in much better shape.

I don't feel totally happy and I'm not quite sure what to do about it.  I don't know what I want and I feel almost like I'm losing part of my identity, which is weird, because I've got my professional life aimed in such a direction that I should know exactly who I am, but I'm still left scratching my head.  And by the time a mom's kid is 3, shouldn't she have regained any identity she might have lost, initially?

I am one who has always, somehow, attracted people who are ready & willing to make suggestions whether I've requested them or not, and that's precisely what I don't respond to.  I am a little like a Croquembouche.  It's one of those cream puff towers held together with spun sugar.  If I get nudged or coaxed in the wrong direction, it's all coming apart and you're gonna have a royal mess to deal with.  But at least with the Croquembouche, you see that it's a mess and you know to clean it up.  With me, I'll probably just go away fuming and you'll be completely ignorant to the fact that I'm pissed off.  We'll discuss my zodiac sign and why that explains a little about who I am, another time.  Another post entirely.

Photo courtesy of alphabetcooking.wordpress.com

What do I want you, my readers, to do about this?  Nothing.  Why am I telling you this?  Because I write an honest blog.  I am not always whipping up some cute craft, rubbing elbows with members of high society, being hi-LAR-ious or feeling my best.  No one always operates at 100% and if anyone in real life, or on Facebook, or on another blog you read, leads you to believe that everything is good, all the time, they are lying to you and themselves.  One of my favorite quotes: "Nobody ever, always or nevers."  Ponder that.

What do I want from myself?  I don't even know.  I wish I had more time to write, to be honest.  I have several really, really solid ideas for new kids' books but I can't find the time to get them down.  And don't come at me with "You could have been working on that instead of writing this blog post," because I couldn't have been doing that.  Writing, or at least my writing and my approach to it, is a little more carefully orchestrated than that.

Truthfully, I wish I had more time during the day to myself, when the sun is out, when the rest of the world is functioning.  It's hard working late at night and it's beginning to take its toll in more ways than one.  ER did great in preschool this year, and the 3 or 4 hours I got to myself per week were nice, but often times, I'd schedule doctor's appointments during that time and before I knew it, it would be time to go get her. Or, I'd come home and get to complete really only 1 or 1 1/2 things while she was gone.  Her preschool time will increase in the fall, which I'm looking forward to, but that's 5 months away.  That's how I always feel when I've got a "break" coming...it's _____ weeks away, or _____ months away.  And, inevitably something will happen to shake it all up.  Which is fine, I know that.  But nothing is as simple as it looks on a calendar.  One of the most difficult things I, personally, have faced since becoming a mom is no longer having the ability to do something from start to finish when I want to do it.  Completing things on my own terms gives me a sense of accomplishment.

I'm going to New York City this weekend and I am pumped for that.  If you're following me on Instagram prepare for your feed to be bombed with pictures of NYC fabu-locity.  I hope that it will help give me a little kick to bring me out of my slump, or at least give me some perspective.  The train ride alone should be cathartic, right?

If this post did nothing else, I hope some mom somewhere is breathing a sigh of relief that it's not just her.  Girl, I'm right there with you.