September has been challenging, frayed around the edges, its undeniable moments of glowing joy and surpassing peace studded in a background of more chaos and disorientation than usual. I started a new job. Grace and Whit started in new grades. Our brand-new nanny quit after two weeks. My writing has stalled out, and I’m more startled by the swooping change of the seasons than ever before. The stunned silence that has settled over me is entirely unsuited to a life that is suddenly incredibly full of details to juggle; my days feel like a blur of new professional responsibilities and routines, all shoe-horned into the school schedule because I haven’t yet found a new babysitter.
This week when I (uncharacteristically) found myself poking through my archives, a post from almost exactly a year ago jumped out at me. It contains a message I – and, I suspect, many of us – need to hear, ever more critically.
The Myth of Balance
Reading so much great stuff out there in the bloggy world today! I love this post called The Balance Myth, which highlights something I think about (and hear from others) all the time. People ask me all the time how I “do it” which always makes me laugh, as I think of all the things I don’t do, and the ones I don’t do well. I’ve even blogged about this before.
I drop a lot of balls. I often feed my kids breakfast in the car, I never blowdry my hair, I wear Juicy sweatpants 90% of the days that I am not at work, I have a very limited social life, my immune system is a mess from subsisting on caffeine, wine, and gummy candy, and I miss a lot of school functions.
But I also have specific habits and have made certain decisions that help me a lot. I always pack lunches the night before, I pay bills the day they come in the door, I avoid the phone in favor of email (more efficient), I cook for the kids a couple of times a week and the rest of the time I assort and reheat, I live in a small house with limited upkeep that is close to school, I shop a few times a year for kid birthday presents and store them until needed, and I put my kids to bed at 7:00 every night (preserving a few hours for my sanity). I also use the random pockets of time that open up; for example, if I’m 10 minutes early to yoga class, I’ll fill up the car or visit the ATM, even if neither need is pressing.
Here’s the post’s key paragraph (in my humble view):
The big secret is that very few people feel even remotely balanced. We’re all being pushed and pulled in a thousand directions. I think the best we can hope for is to fall in love with the living of life and enjoy the ride.
Absolutely true and crucial to remember. Most of all feel we are a mass of loose ends inside. I forget this all time, as I admire women I know who seem to accomplish a thousand things a day, all while maintaining a sunny smile, a perfect outfit, and gorgeous hair. My wise friend who reminded me not to confuse people’s outsides for their insides was onto something: we have to remember, every single day, that probably all of those people who seem to have it all under control are just as flummoxed and frayed as we feel.
I think the post has other wise things to say, about finding things to do for “work” that we love, such that they don’t feel like work (I’m nowhere near that point). The line that strikes the deepest chord is me is that the best we can hope for is to fall in love with the living of life and enjoy the ride.
I think, ultimately, that that is the big prize. To love our lives. To accept them, in all of their mess and inadequacy and moments of blazing splendor.
“I think the best we can hope for is to fall in love with the living of life and enjoy the ride.” If that’s not the best mantra to get through a busy day/week/month, I don’t know what is. Love it!
Your post today came at such a perfect time for me. I’m struggling with multiple deadlines and can’t realistically meet them all. I am reminded that this is probably true of all of us. We are all doing everything we can to hang on, day by day.
Thanks for reposting such a great message–love this line: To accept them, in all of their mess and inadequacy and moments of blazing splendor. I couldn’t agree more yet it is so hard to remember!! As my grandmother always said, this too shall pass. Time keeps marching on and it is so easy to get stuck in the overwhelm of it all rather than enjoying the fleeting moments of splendor! As always thank you for sharing your struggles–I am over here relating and cheering you on!
But you pay your bills the day you get them and fill your gas tank before it’s on E (which doesn’t, I’ve learned, mean Enough…)?? You’re my hero. 🙂
Thank you so much for the reminder not to confuse someone’s outsides with their insides. So true. More reason that we should have compassion for every single one of us, ourselves absolutely no exception!
I also agree with the poster who said you DO have it all together if you can fill up the car and pay bills the day they come in … which reminds me ….
I love that you wrote this at 4:15am…here I am taking a shower to get the chlorine out of my hair, baking chocolate chip cookies and debating if I should clear the dining table of paper chaos when I should have been asleep two hours ago. Your writing isn’t stalled…it is fresh, honest, unbashedly on the mark. I fret to think how we would managed if we didn’t have this forum to take deep breaths of fresh air…attention is love… and you have ours.
Balance is what you make it. We choose the things that are important to us, that where we refuse to compromise. The rest IS Chaos! Interesting though the things we choose to be our principles are the things our children remember. It is these issues they remember as the things where MY Mom won’t give. These are the issues they are proud to brag about to friends. My Mom’s a poet! I thought I was writing for me and I was but they believed in me long before I did. They were aware long before I was that It was Ok to do what I did because that is how the world works but they also knew they were the most important part of my life. I would be late for meetings if they needed me. Looking perfect went out the door long before I decided that I should get over being dressed if time was tight… that my respectable sweats were in our vocabulary… with giggles… my “car ‘jamies”
Ahhh. I think you’re right about “flummoxed and frayed” and I also think that as I learn to compare less and attend more I realize what it is about my days that I need and want.
I don’t actually want a shower every day. I look just fine with attention to my face and armpits. But if I compare myself – eegod! I could never cut myself this break. So I don’t. I ask, what do I need. And a shower is not always on the list.
Sometimes writing tops the list. Or a walk. Or digging in the garden.
Balance and comparing seem to be related and the less of have of one the more I feel of the other.
September has been a wild ride for me too. I’m exhausted from it all and left trying to catch my breath. Is it truly October already? It has also reinforced for me just how little I truly have in order. And I am an “in order” kind of person. This issue plagues and befuddles me to no end.
But I appreciated this line because it’s so very, very true: not to confuse people’s outsides for their insides. This makes me feel so much better!
I think balance is being pulled in every different direction. The unbalanced are those who focus a majority of their time and attention to a single thing at the expense of all the other things. My problem with being balanced is that I am doing so many things, I never really excel at any of them. Oh well.
I’m reading this a few days after you posted it. It seems I’m doing everything just a few days late lately, and trying to breathe through the panic and recriminations that immediately fill my thoughts at my lack of perfection. Laughable, truly, the whole cycle… sigh.
I needed to hear this today, Lindsay. I kinda need to hear it every day. My life is so out of balance at the moment, it’s more like a see-saw. Imagine my shock to discover I’m fairly happy despite the lack of balance – or perhaps because of it? Who knows. What I’m beginning to suspect, however, is that everything is just fine – I can release a little more of my analytical tendencies and enjoy the ride.
I love this. It is something that I have recently concluded as well. Everybody is busy–everybody. Sure, some might have a little more down time than others, but they might also have a busier work time.
Once I realized that, and realized that we are all struggling with balance, I started forgiving myself for my little mistakes. It’s okay if I don’t have the kitchen spotless every night and the floor vacuumed.
Balance. Blah. Balance is b-o-r-i-n-g. : )