Torn

Motherhood and wifehood (is that a word?) is a dream come true for me. And I couldn't have asked for a better family then the one that I have been blessed with. Lauren is always saying the funniest things and Evan couldn't be sweeter if he tried. I love the feeling I get when I walk through the door of my house. The sounds that greet me as I walk up the stairs. I feel pride in my life when I see Lauren and Evan accomplish their little victories as they grow and learn. I couldn't have asked for a better life if I ordered it myself.

But even with all of these abundance of blessings around me all day everyday, I still feel torn. I am caught in between my wants and my needs. I want new furniture, I need to pay the morgage. I want to spend my time with my family, I need to earn money for my family. I want to go to school, I need to suport Chad as he navigates through school. I want to sleep, I need to take care of the house, the kids, the dog, the husband, ect. I am forever weighing what I want with what I need. Something I want, like a smaller jean size or a vacation home in Porto Rico, are just dreams. Some of my wants, like a college education and new furniture, are things that I can have...I just have to wait.

I think that I feel most torn when I am at work. I love my job and the associations that I have developed there. But the whole time I am there I am thinking of my family. Has Chad remembered to take his cumidun? Does he remember that Evan needs to sleep with quak (his stuffed little duck)? Are the kids behaving...Does Chad know where I keep the Mac and Cheese...Are the kids going to bed on time? Well you get the idea. I know that Chad can handle it all because he is a good dad, but I can't help but think that my real role and place is in my home. I know, I know..feminisim takes a huge step backwards. But the beauty of this realization is, society is not telling me that, my heart is.

So about four, sometimes five, days a week, I am caught in this storm or emotions where I know that I am not where I belong. I want to be the one to break up arguments and patch up scraped knees. Joni Mitchell had it right when she sang Big Yellow Taxi. You really don't know what you've got until it's gone. But they arn't going to pave my paradise anytime soon. I am there for my family, just in a different way. When I don't need to work anymore then I will be there to break up arguments and patch up scraped knees.

The sound of my children playing laughing and even fighting is music to my ears. I appreciate every cuddle more then I did before. I don't need new clothes or a fancy car if it means taking away moments, precious moments, in the company of my kids. I am rich beyond measure because of these two little monkeys. If I had nothing else in this world, I am rich. I have Chad, and together we have Lauren and Evan. So that is what is on my mind today. My family, my gift that gives eternally.

In the middle of wishing we had more time to take care of ourselves, we should pause life for just a moment and watch it happen around us. We mothers and wives are givers. We give our time and our talents, and yes-sometimes our hygine, in the effort to raise people who will in turn become productive citizens. We need to take every now and then. We need to take time to smile at their little antics and laugh at the silly things they do any say. We need to take just 10 minutes to ourselves, even if we have to lock ourselves in the bathroom to get it. We need to take a hot bubble bath at midnight with no one but the charactors on the pages of a good book as company. We need to be selfish every now and then so that we can be selfless the rest of the time. Maybe then, we all would stop feeling so torn.