Tightrope or Solid Ground

Is Balance attainable or a wistful dream

Have you ever felt like your life was the equivalent of walking on a tightrope? You are balancing what feels like a million things and one wrong turn, one twisted step, one simple blink can bring everything crashing to the ground. There are times I end my day wondering, “how did I actually manage this day? Can I really keep this up?” Before I met my husband I was a single mother. I worked full time, took care of my daughter, helped out with her school, we were active in church, church activities, she took music lessons, language school and we did hangouts and playdates. I would compare myself to a robot because surely no human would want to manage or balance all that by themselves. Since meeting him and getting married, I have added three more wonderful daughters, two more schools, a husband and a new family to my balancing act. And not a day goes by where I don’t start the day questioning, “how will I get it all done today?”

THE SECRET……

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I DON’T!

In the beginning of being a single mom I wondered every day how I was going to do it. How could I possible balance work, being a mom, it being just the two of us, making sure she had everything she deserved, letting her be a social being….all the things one wants not only for themselves, but for their child. When I got married, I then wondered, how can I do all this with now four more humans and their schedules to my already packed life. Growing up, I was shown that as the woman we are the maintainers of the family, keeper of the kids, head of all things parenting and balancers of the universe - not so obviously, but the women in my family gave off a sense of perfect balance I was in constant awe of. Every family and culture is different, but growing up in an Asian household, there is a weight whether realized or not, that is placed on the girls in the family. An expectation of how one is to manage their family’s affairs once they grow up and the “best foot forward” they need to have while doing it all almost single-handedly.

But something that I learned as a single mom before I got married (and something I’ve had to remember many times since) is that it’s okay to not always have it perfectly balanced, that we can’t and aren’t meant to do it on our own. There are days where you need to just “laze around” to give yourself a breather, moments where you need to say “no” because your life and schedule are already so packed breathing seems like a luxury. There will be times where things slip, you have to scrounge around to catch up, or just let go of things all together. I realized when looking back on my childhood, that my family had each other. I grew up having two different uncles live next door to us and a multitude of aunties and uncles within 30 minutes of our house. My aunties always seemed to have it together because they could share the “load” of parenting with each other. There was a synchronicity between our families that help sustain that balance each family had. We aren’t meant to do it all, or do it all alone. When I finally let family help out when I needed to take a nap, or even give myself a moment to enjoy grocery shopping alone (let’s be honest moms and dads, we ALL use grocery shopping as a personal “by ourselves” experience) my life because breathable again.

We need to stop being so hard on ourselves in thinking the world will crash down if we don’t have it all together every second of every day. The funny thing is, that as I type this, I’m kicking myself for forgetting this very thing not too long ago. Balance is attainable, but it will never look the way we think it should. No matter how many things we have piling up, finding time for ourselves and giving ourselves grace is the only way to ever really be balanced. Trusting other people and trusting ourselves is the only thing that can give us peace.

Remember, even Carol had Alice (The Brady Bunch), Harriett had Estelle (Family Matters), Morticia had Lurch, Uncle Fester and Grandmama (The Addams Family), Danny had Uncle Jesse and Joey (Full House) and Carol and Cody (Step by Step). Balancing isn’t how we keep everything around us pretty, perfect and ideally aligned. It’s how we do what needs to be done, taking time for ourselves and accepting that we don’t have to do it all alone.