Last year was a stressful year for me. My husband was gone from May-September for work, we moved across the country, and I had to finish and defend my thesis. After my husband left, I looked at the rest of the year with daunting dread. I had no idea how, or if, I was going to finish everything I had to finish. My plate was overflowing, and I was beyond overwhelmed. I made a major decision and decided that I was not going to stress about the move.
We move frequently, so I took a step back and realized no matter how prepared I was, it was going to be a stressful fiasco.
I may regret it now that we’re at our destination, but I decided not to purge anything. Feeling overwhelmed, I knew I couldn’t do it all. I could either spend hours putting toys in a bag to donate or I could spend quality time with my children, but I didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to do both. I may be still purging toys six months after moving, but I had a pretty great summer with my kids and am so grateful I made my children the priority.
“We do so much for so many but at the end of the day, we need to remember to do amazing things for ourselves.”
Finishing School
Any mother who has gone back to school knows that the kids sense that weakness; they attack right when you’re in the middle of an important assignment and cunningly ruin your train of thought. My kiddos are no exception. I was in the middle of analyzing data for my thesis and suddenly all three of them had an “emergency.” I am terrible at numerical data and right when I was finding my groove for my charts, I was interrupted on a massive scale and it all fell apart. It took me over two weeks to finish my data charts. I may have cried (twice) but I finished. I live with the understanding that children need emotional support in the same way I do; sometimes what I am doing needs to be put on hold for their need at the time. The data charts were finished and the time it took me to get to the end doesn’t matter. I had completed something for me while still taking care of their needs.
Unfortunately, after we arrived at our new home, I still had a lot of work to do on my thesis. I was inching toward completion, but it felt like it was dragging on. Now I was faced with the task of unpacking a new home, adjusting my older two in school, finding a new ballet studio, and they still needed dinner every night. The last thing I wanted to do was sit down at my computer and write and edit. I was so tempted to ask for a semester extension because I didn’t think I could do it all. My thesis chair encouraged me to finish and I ended up being much closer to the finish line than I thought.
Completing the Task
In mid-November, I received an email from my thesis chair that my thesis was ready for defense. I successfully defended it right before Thanksgiving and completed my editing before Christmas. A few weeks ago I received a hard copy of my thesis in the mail. It proved to me that we may get overwhelmed with life, but we can keep moving forward. As a mother, we have so much on our plate but when we are able to accomplish something for ourselves, we remember how amazing we really are.
There are a lot of messages on the internet reminding women that we are phenomenal, we are powerful, we are all Wonder Women, and we can accomplish anything. These are frequent messages because they are true. We do so much for so many but at the end of the day, we need to remember to do amazing things for ourselves. Pursue those degrees, push for that raise, hug your kids, look in the mirror and remind that woman that she can do anything she wants.
