yo-yo.

There's this feeling that I experience just about everyday of motherhood. It's a scattered feeling, a sense that I have one foot in and one foot out of life, a kind of yo-yo sensation in which I am constantly swinging back and forth and up and down.

As I sit here and type this, I'm sharing the couch with piles of laundry I've not yet folded. The dishwasher needs to be unloaded and it's almost 3:30pm and I should really get the littles up so they can go to bed before 10pm tonight. I need to start cooking dinner because Ren will start asking for it as soon as he's up from his nap, not to mention the slew of other things on my to-do list that I haven't tackled. There's always something.

But that's not even it. I've become accustomed to the reality that there's always something to be done around the house and that nothing is ever truly finished. The thing that I have a hard time with is stepping out of my domestic bubble and extending myself to others, into the rest of the world, and getting involved in people and places and ideas that I'm excited about. It's hard for me to strike that balance in this stage of life. I feel like I can peep my head out of my little world for a while, but soon enough, I must retreat again and give myself 100% to my family. 

The thing is, there are so many things I love in life. I love to read and write and paint. I want to finish my MFA, I would like to go back to work as a nurse, I want to be a part of the big and exciting things that God is doing through other people all around the world. I want to contribute to that and make an impact beyond the domain of family life. And, so, when I feel as though things are going smoothly at home, I sense the freedom to start stepping out into the world more. When my intuition tells me that the coast is clear, I feel as though I can start to spread my wings again. However, it's inevitable that I can only stay there so long before I have to tap out and hunker down here again.

And, so, I often feel as though I'm just spinning my wheels. Choosing to do something creative means that the domestic duties go undone, or get postponed until they pile so high that I get buried beneath them. I can't keep up with all of it. Choosing to do something creative with my time means that a price must be payed, whether it means that I'm more tired or the house is more of a mess or the kids are grumpier because I can't accommodate all of their preferences. I'm learning that it's usually worth the price, because the state of my soul is more at rest and happier when I'm doing something creative, whether it be writing a little blog post, writing a poem in my journal, refinishing a piece of furniture, playing with my acrylics, or doing Google job searches for part-time nursing positions in our area. However, sometimes I get so tired of the red-light-green-light, the stop and go, the in and out. I can fall prey to giving up and saying "why bother?" But, I've learned that this resignation is the precursor for depression, and so I'm determined to keep trying, despite the frustration and the frequent sense of mental whiplash.

I read a Donald Miller blog post a while ago that mentioned how humans are healthier when we are working towards something--aiming toward some goal or passion. We need forward movement and growth in order to stay psychologically healthy. Stagnation is a bad thing.

This is a rub for me. Some days I feel as though one hundred percent of my energies go toward maintaining the status quo around here--just meeting our basic daily needs of food and clothing and sleep and potty. I suppose that the rearing of children IS forward movement--but it's a very, very long term endeavor that never seems to end and often gets swallowed up in the dailiness of life. It usually doesn't feel like movement at all, since so many domestic tasks get undone so quickly. Trying to do anything "extra," as in, working towards some goal outside of this, sometimes feels ridiculous and impossible.

And sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have pockets of time and energy at my disposal to give to things I love and enjoy outside of my family. I suppose the struggle here is being okay with the zig zagging unpredictability of trying to keep a hand in all of it. Most days, my life feels like an intricate web of loose ends; a pile of half-finished projects and endeavors. I try to keep my eyes on the process, not the end result, and accept the fact that this is reality: a constant and ongoing mix of progress and set-backs, of moving out and stepping back, of always being in that scattered and blurry space between. "There is no easy answer."

Do you ever feel like this?
How do you navigate the "yo-yo" effect of life or parenthood?
What goals or ambitions do you have outside of your primary duties?

excerpt from Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh