Life goes on. Whether we are gliding along with it or not, life stops for no one. The clock has never once paused for me to catch up, get something done, or (I wish!) get a little ahead. On the contrary, it sometimes seems to flash me a sinister grin, ticking ever-so-slightly faster as it revels in my struggles to gain ground. The laundry piles up. The sink fills with dishes. And the sun rises and sets in the same pattern regardless of my to-do list and how much is left unchecked. Life goes on.
Sometimes my hardest days are when I am fighting the current. I am fighting with time as I argue with it (pointlessly) to slow down, to wait just a minute for me, to give me some room to breathe. The more behind I get, the more frustrated I feel and that only fuels more behind-ness. The day goes haltingly until, if I'm lucky, I give in and decide to relax a little. To ride that current. To harness some of the power that is pushing against me to allow it to propel me in the direction I want to go. Sometimes it means forfeiting my well-intentioned list. Other times it means approaching it in a different way, like maybe doing what seems least important just for some sense of accomplishment before tackling the bigger-ticket items. And sometimes, life gets in the way of living. So just quitting the whole list thing and just living in the moment often holds a big payback.
Yesterday, it was mud that got me moving. After a difficult day of fighting against a bad mood, low energy and generally not feeling well, I finally gave into it. My daughter kept pleading with me to "be a nice mom," "don't be a mean mom" and reassuring me over and over again "it's ok mom." Oh, the wisdom of a two-year-old. It wasn't that I wasn't trying. It wasn't that I didn't feel horrible for being snappy and edgy. I hated that I was being so cross. But that only added to my misery making me more edgy and cross. So something had to change. For us, that often means going outside. Luckily for me, yesterday couldn't have been more perfect. And the nasty mood started to melt away in the warm sun as we mixed dirt and water to make "mud paint," a technique I learned from a young cousin, dipping our weed paintbrushes into the thick mixture to make art on our driveway, a nice mindless activity that bridged the gap between stressful mom days and carefree childhood. I don't miss those days. I love being a mother, but it is nice to go and visit from time to time and yesterday I enjoyed my mini-vacation immensely.
Mischievously, a smile crept over my lips and I asked Hannah, "do you want to paint on the garage?" We have a dark garage door and the mud dried a light tan which looked awesome on our makeshift canvas. We had more fun then I would have imagined smearing our hands with mud to leave hand prints, finger prints, streaks and "messes" all over the garage door. And it felt so good knowing it would wash off easily with the hose. I still haven't washed it off.
I'm not worried that it taught Hannah anything other than the idea that it's okay to be messy sometimes when you have good boundaries (a garage door), that even cranky moms can turn things around, and that no one ever really grows up if they keep that door to childhood just a little ajar.
I know I'm keeping mine open forever.
xoxoxo
