I hate survival mode.
When I spend my days working hard to keep my head above water, and I’m just treading and treading and treading … I begin to get resentful of every minute and hour and day. Because even though I’m living, and some days feel sooooooooo LONG, I can’t help but feel angry because I’m not actually LIVING.
These years with littles are tough. Really tough. I spend a lot of time covered in spit up, and eating peanut butter and jelly crusts, and dealing with tantrums, and reflux, and potty training, and nap schedules… head spinning, never really getting a second to breathe… It’s wild. This season is definitely spent in the trenches.
BUT, on the flip side, I know at the core of me, that this time is so so precious and fleeting. Watching Leo grow so fast the first 18 months of his life is what led me to taking a pause on my career in ministry and staying home during these early years. Because it is such a short amount of time. So why are the days so damn long?!?
Elias is our last baby. Banking on everything going as planned. And because of this, I have a weird mix of relief and despair.
I never have to pregnant again. I never have to give birth again. I never have to figure out how to live on very very very little sleep again.
YET, I will never get to hold my baby for the first time again. I will never get to see a first smile again. I will never use my teeny tiny newborn clothes again.
It’s a really shitty conundrum. This parenting gig. Like, can this go faster and slower at the same time, please?!
All of this to say, I’ve had to put some of my personal passions on hold for a bit. While I have been living in this strange relationship with time, and, you know, keeping two humans alive… I’ve had very little space to focus on my blog. And that is difficult for me.
I don’t blog for the hell of it. I don’t feel a need to be trendy or public or followed. I blog because I am a writer. Actually, I am a communicator. So if I’m really functioning as the woman I was built to be, it should always include sharing, speaking, writing… living out loud. It’s just who I am.
I know other women are somehow able to take care of littles, and have amazing careers. But that is just not my capacity. And honestly, I’m totally okay with that. I spent too many years beating myself up for not being able to “produce” as much as others. Then one day, I decided to put that garbage mindset to rest and accept that I am the type of person who does things with a full heart, so I just can’t have as many things on my list as I’d like… but if I’m loving my people well, and taking care of my heart… we’re good to go.
Which is why I’m writing and POSTING this. Because I realized, in the last several months, I have been taking care of my people, but not me. I need this. I need to express. I need to share. I need to make time for it.
So, although there is nothing amazingly profound about this post, just writing it and sharing it is profound enough to me. I’ve spent months trying to decide what my first post back should be about, and then I realized that the hype in my mind was making me avoid sitting my butt down and writing.
My one hope for this little snippet is a desire to give people freedom to acknowledge where they are at, and the season they are living… but also the courage to look at themselves and ask, what do I need? Please, pause for a minute, and give yourself some stinking grace, because life is hard and there is no manual for how to navigate whatever season you are in. But also pause and ask, what do I need? And then please, please, please, give yourself permission to not only answer honestly, but to also follow through and get that thing that will breathe life, and joy, and energy into the person you were created to be.
Can’t wait to keep writing. Please encourage me to keep it up!
Xo!!
