What are you doing now?

Over the past few years I have watched with curiosity and jealousy as stay at home moms dropped off their youngest children at school for the first time and steadily disappeared from the playdate scene.

What’s it like on the other side?  I wondered.  Does it feel as awesome as it looks?  Why are you crying?  Do you really miss them?

Some returned to work, roles clearly defined once again.  But for those who remained at home, I wondered how they used their time.

Last month I finally got to experience the transition myself.  (You can take a moment to celebrate with me here.)

And people I knew well and not so well stopped me to ask what I was going to do now.  

“Do you just sit on the couch all day?” a teacher at school asked, not meaning to imply that I was lazy, but still, I didn’t know how to respond.  Is it okay to relax? Is it okay not to jump into a nine to five job? Am I lazy compared to the teachers who open the school doors before seven AM each morning?  Does anyone else feel this tremendous pressure that comes from needing to define your time and purpose all over again? Or the guilt that comes from not contributing financially to the home budget?

What am I doing now?

I had to write it out, map it on a calendar and list it to wrap my head around this massive transition.

What’s it like?  It’s like having years of pent up desires and to do lists unleashed onto uninterrupted time such that I feel intense pressure to accomplish all of my dreams, albeit self-inflicted and at times unjustified.  This time is a gift. A gift. And yet, I am setting my alarm to wake up earlier than I have in recent years. With young children in the house I haven’t had to use an alarm regularly since I quit working.  I have set my alarm more this past month than I have in the last seven years.

I am reminded of an old Amy Grant song where she sings,

When the weight of all my dreams
Is resting heavy on my head
And the thoughtful words of help and hope
Have all been nicely said
But I'm still hurting, wondering if I'll ever be the one
I think I am--I think I am.

What’s on that massive to-do list?

First, there is self-care.

1. Eating: For the first time in forever (more song lyrics!) I am able to eat when I am hungry.  After spending years practically inhaling my food worried that some young hand is going to snatch away what I make for myself or worried that some young person is going to hurt another if I linger over a meal, I am reminding myself to slow down, choose my food with care and eat to nourish myself rather than eat to survive or console my fraught emotions.
2. Posture: I am thinking about sitting up straight and breathing correctly.  After years of bending over from breast-feeding and picking up trains and small children and who knows what else, I am aspiring to regain my full height, and perhaps even (I can dream, right?) regain control over my flaccid stomach muscles.
3. Dressing: I have been shopping.  I have a couple of new dresses and two new pairs of shoes.  I try to dress to feel good now, instead of reaching for the automatic mom uniform.
4. Exercise: I am running a few times a week.  I am not frantically training for a marathon.  I just want to be a little healthy, a little flexible, a little lighter.

Second, there is home-care.

1. Cleaning: I still am in the house for many hours a day, and it needs to be livable.  I try to do my housework a little at a time during the middle of the day just like I used to when my kids would nap (on the days they actually would nap!).
2. Organizing: I have waited for the kids to all be school age for so long I have this long list of how to reorganize their room so they can access their own clothes, art supplies and toys and become independent and free to create and have quiet places to read.
3. Projects: Anyone else run out of computer space for their digital pictures?  Yes, I need to make those photo albums, finish the t-shirt quilts I started for my youngest two, and hang remaining pictures on the walls.  If I get to updating the journals I keep for the kids or making their baby books or Christmas stockings, please feel free to mail me a card of congratulations.

Third, there is kid-care:

1. After school activities: There are still many hours in the day when I am with the kids.  2-5:30pm for example is a chunk of time we need to fill after school -- either with activities or downtime at home.  I want them all to learn to swim, to learn the piano, and to spend time with friends. I also want them to develop spiritually, which delves into spiritual care.
2. Spiritual care: Our family tries to do family devotions three mornings a week, albeit rushed between breakfast and getting to school.  I help run a Christian after school club for my kids and their classmates, so I need time to prep the lessons. My older two also started attending the elementary youth group at our church this fall.

Lastly, there are my personal dreams and goals:

1. Write.  Write what?  I wanted to write novels, but it turns out I need time to reflect.  So I am beginning with writing a memoir of my life over the past four years.
2. Write.  Where? I am also posting essays and reflections, in addition to book discussions and Christian club lessons, on my new website evenincambridge.com.
3. Read.  I am still in two book clubs -- one for neighborhood moms I run with a friend, and the other through the O’Neill branch library.
4. Volunteer.  This crosses several categories.  My kids can learn to give when we make our monthly sandwich delivery to a tutoring group in Cambridge.  I can chaperone field trips for the first time. I can serve the kids at my kids’ school by helping with packaging food for the weekend backpack program or the monthly market.  I can help various PTO-like entities with fundraising and community events.
5. Sing.  I auditioned for my church’s Christmas Benefit Concert choir, and I’m in!  It has been more than 18 years since I have sung in a choir, and it is truly a joy to hear all of the voices raised around me.  When I am at practice I feel like I am adding fun back into my life.

Is that it?  I am sure there are things missing from this list.  There is so much I want to do now, I have to check myself constantly and make sure I say no to things in order to pace myself.  And at the end of the day, I need to remember how that Amy Grant song ends. It starts with her as stressed as I feel some mornings, worried I’ll sleep through the alarm because I was up late prepping worksheets or reading a novel or up in the night because someone’s ears were congested.

But of course, the song doesn’t end there.  It concludes:

Then you gently re-remind me
That You've made me from the first
And the more I try to be the best
The more I get the worst.
And I realize the good in me is only there because of who
You are, who You are.
And all I ever have to be is what
You've made me

I don’t know if I’ll have time in this life to get through the to-do list.  And I’m praying to be okay with that. I pray to prioritize God and to prioritize relationships.  Beyond that, I pray to use the gifts God has given me and to be the person he has created me to be.

That is what happens when your children go to school.  It’s rather earth-shattering in the changes it brings.

And that was just September.  

God go before me because who knows what this calendar will bring.