Help

  In order to invest in "my other work" of writing, I need to have childcare for my boys. One (I) could question whether this is legitimate, knowing that it might never generate a penny or directly help anyone else. The idea of help is tricky. There are days when I resent my kids for my lack of time and my spouse for judging me as an inconsistent housekeeper. The clothes are always piling up, the floors never clean and I can’t even remember the last time I cleaned the bathrooms. I have thought about hiring a cleaner, but feel so badly at failing and at the thought of becoming one of those people who has others do everything so I can be lazy. I guess any “me time” feels like laziness.

            “Me time” also requires funding, so not only am I not producing, but I am sucking resources from others. I can easily spend $5 a day on coffee, but struggle with using that money to have someone watch my kids for 3 hours.

My parents had an interesting influence on my sense of time and money. One Saturday morning when I was around ten, I remember asking my dad to help me make a wooden pencil holder. He told me that he made $50 and hour and that it would not be worth his time. He does not remember saying this and he did build me a pencil holder, but I can remember feeling like I was not worth his time. Conversely, my mother spent a great deal of time on her own pursuits, knitting, cooking, reading and listening to the radio. Yes, she simultaneously mothered seven kids, but she did not apologize for her loves, nor did she give them up to “play games” with us. Was she a bad mother for this? I did resent being picked up hours after my baseball games were finished, but overall, she was pretty amazing at showing up for herself and me. We could find and engage with her anytime and I would sit and listen with her, so that her world was our world.

            The final case for “me time” is as follows: Time alone gives me permission to take writing seriously, and take my life seriously. I feel human and can tackle my fears. I am free and present in engaging with others, especially my kids. It is essential and I have to afford it. I am not a bad mother for wanting 6 hours to myself a week, as my goal is to be an available person, for others and myself. I was working a job one day a week and making pennies without apology, so why can’t I hire myself to focus on creating? Additionally, I am in a journal writing class, where I am required to write. So if I cannot stomach doing it for myself, I have the external motivation from my professor and permission to write through journaling and story telling.

           It is easy to want to end it all with the words, “I grow weary,” but it is only true if I let myself live soley in my mothering space and not in a creative world where I am a human being, created by God to love and be loved.