Motherhood Monotony
Are we living our lives as a broken record? Are we on auto-pilot? Are we channeling Bill Murray vibes from Groundhog Day? I don’t know about you, but it feels that way to me, sometimes too much.
Not that the youngsters would understand this, but do you feel like a tape that has been played all the way through, and then right when you think you’re gonna get a break, someone turns the tape over and shoves it back in the deck, and you continue playing? Every once in a while your tape gets loose inside the cassette, so you need someone to grab a pencil to tighten you up, get you back in working order. (I suppose this would be “self-care”)
I think doing the same thing every single day has made the past 11 months fly by. There is really nothing that makes one day feel any different than the others, until the weekend of course, because my big kids are home instead of at school, so our routine is a bit different. There are times where I wake up and it's a completely different month, like when did the previous month even end? The other day I said “last month in September……”. Last month was definitely not September, not today, or the day I said that.
In some ways, I appreciate the routine, and knowing what to expect out of every day. But there are times where I resent the monotony of it all. I miss excitement, spontaneity, having firsts all the time. But I also know I am in a stage of life that is more meaningful, and I still have all of those things, they just look a little different. Excitement is not getting myself a new pair of shoes or going on a date, it’s setting up the Halloween yard decorations up while the kids are at school and seeing the huge smiles on their faces when we pull into the driveway! Spontaneity is no longer a random weekend trip, or a tattoo, it’s deciding at the last minute on a Sunday that we are gonna load the van up and go to the zoo….. and we didn’t even plan it weeks in advance. And boy do I still have many firsts, the first time they lost a tooth, the kids first haircut, the first time one of my kids peed on me (that actually didn’t happen for me until the 3rd one surprisingly - my husband can’t say the same)
One thing that I have found myself doing lately, is trying to find the good in each moment. I think in my earlier years of adulthood I really focused on time being measured in weeks, months, and years. As I have gotten older, lost loved ones, had children, and honestly just had more life experiences, I look at time in moments, sometimes those moments are 5 seconds, some may be 2 hours, some may be several days. Just for the record, moments pass wayyyyyy faster than months. Good and bad moments. So if I am witnessing something sweet with my kids, I cherish it, because I know it won’t last forever, but I used that same attitude when it comes to something not so sweet, if I have a rough morning, it's just a moment, I will work through it, it will be over, then I will have the opportunity for different moments. This is not a perspective I was able to obtain overnight, it's something that has been six years in the making. The trigger for this new way of thinking was giving birth to my first child and losing my only sibling in a span of 5 months. It was truly a wake up call for me.
So do I hate the monotony of being a SAHM? 100%. Will I go back to work to break that feeling up? 100% nope. I will just find ways to break it up myself, impromptu trips to the coffee shop because I feel like it, a girls night when I can squeeze it in, ignoring all of my chores for a day and having my husband pick up dinner on his way home so I don’t have to cook, and trying my best to always keep in mind…… this is just a moment.
You know what I find somewhat comforting? Each day when we wake up, we get to have a choice. Will today be a repeat of yesterday? Or will I find the joy in the moments instead of the fury in monotony?
