I've come to the conclusion that I may never find balance.
One of my goals after the New Year was to find a new groove in twenty fourteen. I knew I would have to after returning to the workforce on a regular basis for the first time in almost seven years. I had mentally prepared myself for how the kids would react to mommy being absent at bed time on some nights. I gave a lot of thought to how it was going to work with someone else besides me doing homework with Caitlin. I worried about dinners when I wasn't home and who would shuttle the girls to their dance classes and library trips. I've been worried and stressed about anything and everything since January 7th. Guess what? I'm no closer to finding balance now than I was then. Or even two years ago. Or seven years ago.
I'd like to blame my part time job on chicken nugget dinners and dishes in the sink. I'd like to say that I have no time to fold and put the laundry away because I had to close three nights in a row. I really would like to say all of the that, but I can't. The truth is that even when I was home every day and every night, none of that shaz got done. I didn't cook every night. I didn't put a single piece of laundry away unless I was under duress. My bathrooms were never company ready. My kitchen never spotless. So honestly the quest for balance wasn't a new escapade for twenty fourteen. I've been on the journey for balance my entire adult life.
I'd like to think there is something real and tangible about an unbalanced life. The kind of life that forces you to feed your kids McDonald's while they ride in the cart at the grocery store, because you need bread for the next days lunch. The kind of life spent making to-do lists that just keep getting longer and longer, because with every item you check, another gets added immediately. A life where you are drying a single shirt for spirit day in the dryer because you fell asleep before you could change the laundry, which made you all late for school, and you had to face the attendance lady once again. A life where you secretly flip off said attendance lady. Real life involves fumbling and stumbling. It requires you to make the best out of every situation, even if you feel like there is no light, let alone balance at the end of that tunnel.
Perhaps I wasn't cut out for a balanced life. A life of ease and punctuality. A life free of things like procrastination and fruitless endeavors. Maybe this is the only way I can soar, and rise above the little daily struggles. Is it possible that I need resistance, that I need a little bit of fight in me to continue to thrive in this life I've carved out for myself? I'm sure there is much happiness in a balanced life, but I'm here to tell you there is just as much happiness in an unbalanced life. There is just as much life and love in mornings where we eat cookies for breakfast and arrive forty minutes late to class. There is joy in Target trips after seven pm on a school night. Laughter can be heard at midnight in my house when the Hubbs and I can finally get a free moment together making each other laugh until we cry and cough and sputter. After four months of trying and striving for balance, I've finally taken comfort in being unbalanced.
One day, I may have balance in my life. I'll probably be older and more grey. It will probably be just me and the Hubbs, sitting in our rockers watching the evening news. The house will be quiet and the dishes will be clean, and my bathrooms will be company ready. And balance will look really good from the outside. But I have this feeling that in my heart, I will miss the chaos of my unbalanced life.
