Having It All

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my life.

This is in response to doing a lot of reading. I've scoured the library system to find interesting books I'd like to catch up on. Several of these are nonfiction books centered around politics and sociology.

I guess it started a ways back when I was retailing all I had on my plate:

Mom
Wife
Payer of Bills
Precinct Chair
Treasurer of the PTA
Drama Teacher
Church Employee
Coupon Queen
School Store Staffer
Science Program Chair
Copy Room Trainer

and so forth. Every one of those duties has made demands on my time, and of late the increasing demands have been a challenge to shuffle. My housework has suffered, of course, and I'm not as good a wife as I'd like to be. Sometimes I don't get calls made that I'd like to complete for work, and as for church, I've all but dropped off the radar, coming in only twice a month when scheduled and missing the extra events and meetings I ought to go to.

(To be fair about church, when I've gotten more involved in the past, I've been slapped down and made to understand my input is minimally valued, so I quit trying to change the situation and started doing just the minimum. That's a major character flaw in myself, and one I'm sure I'm paying for. Still, it is a bit difficult to dash one's head against the same brick wall year after year, hoping that it will magically dematerialize.)

But I thought about all I do, and how fortunate I am to be able to do it. We don't NEED a second income, but it is really nice to have it. The major bonus of the drama job, though, is that I love doing it. I have a skill set, and I can use it to pass on my love of drama to kids. I wonder if I'd feel the same way about it if I HAD to work.

Right now, the Little Critter is at her computer, playing a game after a hard day. Soon we will tackle Spelling together, and then have dinner and goof around a bit. She'll go to bed with both parents home at a reasonable hour, and with parents who have time to spare for her.

I remember working full time and putting the Bigun in an afterschool program about eleven years ago. I know she loved the program, and several of her friends went to the same program and enjoyed it immensely. Still, after a full day at a job I neither liked nor understood well, I had very little left to give her or JJ. She got my best for a half hour in the car on her way to private school, and then she got the hectic mom all evening until bedtime. I never found a way to balance working all day with doing everything else I had to get done.

Unbelievably, now I'm doing a lot more, and yet have more time for the family. I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I do all of the above, and also the occasional unscheduled school work or volunteer committment (just today I was asked by the Homeowner's Association to help count ballots for the Association Election) and still I have dinner on the table most evenings, and clean clothes and a full pantry. I'm sure part of it is the enthusiasm that comes with doing things I love doing. Another part has got to be my Late Onset Order Disorder, which manifest itself after I got married. All that means is that where once I couldn't juggle two things at a time, now I can easily handle ten. Often just in my head.

I laughed at Contrary when she said I rocked the multi-tasking, but I'm beginning to think it's not just pretty words because she's nice to me like that. But honestly, ask my parents; there is nothing in my history before we got married that would point to this as being the stuff of which I am made. "Fish?" they would say. "She's a little goofy, generally kindhearted (but not nearly enough,) a voracious reader and a bit of a dreamer, and not much to show for it. She's got potential, but she's not living up to it. Full of plans, but nothing ever comes of them. She's sort of coasting."

I don't know what they would say now.