I am still alive, I promise.
Amidst being a mom to 16 month old, working a few days a week, managing my household and having fun, I do think about blogging. Mostly, I think about what the heck to write about!
Sometimes, I feel like I’ve abandoned my goal of keeping this blog. I have thoughts that resemble, “What kind of goal-writer are you that you have no current goals and you don’t write!?” Then I remember that I always knew I would hit this stage.
When I see my chalk board list of my Bucket List goals (which has fallen down behind this coffee table, like a metaphor for my life), it’s very clear that these all can’t happen quickly. One of my goals is to have kids. After I had Jack, people said “yay! you can cross that off!” but Willy insists that there’s an S at the end of the word “kids” and we can’t cross it off until we’ve had #2. Sure, whatever! The point is that having kids is extremely life-altering and some would say dream-crushing! Willy and I joke about a Louis CK (comedian) bit where he talks about girls not becoming women until they’ve “had a couple of kids and their life is in the toilet. Or when you push people out of your lady parts and they step on your dreams. If you’re still standing after that, you are a woman!” ***
I laugh because sometimes it seems like it’s true. With young kids, it can feel like none of your dreams can ever happen, that your life is trying to change the dirty bum of a kid who is trying to run away to tear apart the house you just tidied and then throw a tantrum when you say no. Or the idea of just trying to get out of the house for a run seems so overwhelming that you eat a cinnamon bun instead to make yourself feel better. Goals can seem foolish and irresponsible. Maybe at some points of this life stage it is foolish to try to attempt anything but keeping your marriage from being flushed down the toilet by your toddler along with your AppleTV remote.
So when I think, “What am I even doing lately, besides neglecting everything I had worked for before kids?” I remind myself that Kids were part of the Bucket List.
Crushing cheerios underfoot for the bazillionth time is not what I had in mind when I wrote “Have kids” down on my list. But I have to be ok with the fact that I desired and chose (and enjoy!) goals that take over other aspects of my life and that are slow in their maturation process.
Life happens. Sometimes it’s the way we plan, more often it isn’t.
***[I don’t agree that having kids is the thing that makes a woman a woman! I was a woman long before I was married and had a child.]
