So, I’ve had a pretty lazy, unproductive day week. The kind of week that I try to have at least, uuuh, every week. I’m pretty successful at it, clocking in at least a solid three lazy days, per week. My life is going to turn upside down once I start working outside the home. And by this I mean to say, I am in no hurry to work outside the home.
I don’t bore easily (though I may be quite boring to read about) and I find comfort in the warm glow of my favorite TV shows and this trusty laptop. My kids provide the love and laughter I need, my sister-friends are there to keep me thinking and loving outside the home, and Hal, well he rounds out the rest of my needs.
My shows, The Shield, and Sons of Anarchy, ended their season. The Shield, ended permanently (so sad about this) but SOA will be back next season. Just thought I’d mention it since watching TV is actually a big part of my life right now. I have never watched so much TV _IN MY LIFE_ as I have since we got cable a year ago with the DVR recorder.
The other shows I watch are: Kitchen Nightmares, Top Chef, Nanny 911, Dexter (losing interest in this one), Heroes (also losing interest), Californication, The Office, Oprah (sometimes), Dr. Phil (also only sometimes), Entourage, and I have been meaning to record, 30 Rock.
When Max is at school and Bella is playing on her own, I spread out on the couch to watch a recorded show. Sometimes, it feels like I should be ashamed of myself. Why am I not making something? Reading something? Doing something? Going somewhere? Then, almost as soon as I think this, I counter my concern with, because I don’t want to. And then I feel a sense of peace. Like, yeah, it is perfectly fine to take an hour (or a few) to be lazy. I sneak minutes from my day to do nothing ALL THE TIME. While some (way more energetic) folks may be itching to get back to their creating or their goals, or their plan to conquer the world, I’m itching to get back to just sitting down and doing nothing.
There are always parts of my home that need tending to. I decided a long time ago that I was okay with this because doing nothing during the younger years of my children’s lives is WAY BETTER than doing laundry. Hal and our children benefit because I rarely get stressed out which translates to, I rarely raise my voice at them. I’m patient and calm way more than I’m agitated. Its easy to stay calm when you don’t have 20 things on your To Do List.
When both the kids are in elementary school, I look forward to going back to a part-time job outside the home, but for now its really nice to only have the responsibility of caring for my children. Which, if you’ve been a consistent reader of this blog you know, I take this responsibility pretty seriously. It’s a privilege I find myself gushing over often. I feel really lucky. Especially since being a stay at home mom, or shit, HAVING KIDS, was never part of my Life Plan. My dream was to be a nomad. In other words, I never spent any amount of time thinking about my future, until I had children.
I’m not so blissed out that I don’t fantasize about throttling my kids into another Universe for a few hours so that I can have some “me time.” Always being needed, always being the teacher, the guider, the caregiver, the decision maker for other people is draining. I am in awe of women who do way more than I do. Women who have responsibilities outside their homes and get little to no help from partners while at home. Even women who have awesome partners, have kids, and still seem to “do it all” awe the fuck out of me. Women who have a list of things to get done everyday and actually set out to do them (I have those lists, too, just the pressure to get them done is next to none), are pretty amazing to me. Those are the true Super Moms (in the best possible way) – though they rarely see their own greatness in it all. Those humble bitches, gotta love ‘em.
Exhaustion tells us lies. It tells us we should be doing more when really its our body we should listen to, and do less. What we think of as guilt, is often not guilt at all, but shame masquerading as guilt. Guilt, to me, is an emotional red flag from the Universe to change a behavior, to do something different next time or in the next moment – not the go ahead to beat myself up over something I did or didn’t do – that feeling of degrading myself, that part is Shame. And there is no room in my life for shame. Fuck shame. Can’t sew? So what. Don’t want to learn to sew right now? So what. Yelled at Max today? Get over it. Fast. Every moment is a new moment to speak with love. There is no use for shame in my house. I won’t have it. I don’t think anyone should. And I will never promote it in my children. If I could go into everyone’s home and collect it, throw it into a Shamedisposer, and rid our Universe of it – I would.
Its hard to decipher the difference between shame and guilt. Especially for moms. Here’s how I tell the two apart: Guilt is about acknowledging that I’ve done something wrong and Shame is about feeling that there is something wrong with me. Guilt for me is useful, while shame is destructive – totally NOT useful.
So, if I’m feeling guilty about something, I usually ask myself, “Is there really anything wrong with this? Or am I just feeling shame because the rest of the world projects a different image of what *should* be?”
Here’s a specific example: “Maybe I should be reading books to Bella right now instead of resting in front of the TV. I’m such a lousy mom. I’m so lazy.” In this moment, I am feeling shame. Like, there is something wrong with me because I’d rather zone out to a [quality] TV show. Then, I say to myself, “Bella is happy, she’s loved, we do read to her every day, I’m tired, I need a break, Bella is playing happily and she comes to me for love which I happily give to her.” Shame GONE. And there is no guilt for the action because I’m not getting hurt and neither is Bella.
Guilt is what I felt after spanking Max when he was younger. That needed to be changed.
I have to do this several times a day, because it seems that with mothering, comes a huge butt load of guilt and shame. Like, those emotions are Part Two of the mothering package. They flew out of my ass at the same time my kids were being pushed out of the other orifice down there.
I will say, I have noticed the package getting smaller and more manageable as my children have gotten older. This too shall pass, I believe is an appropriate cliche’.
Guilt is a personal tool. A tap on the shoulder. Its not for anyone to give to me or for me to push on to anyone else. Its a guide that comes from within telling me to change something I’m doing to make my life easier.
So anyway, just some stuff I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of days. Not trying to define guilt and shame for anyone else. Just working it out for me.
