Moving Ahead While Feeling Like You're Falling Behind

So first, an update.  I got my red stripe!  I killed that board when I broke it.  It was, as my husband would say, “like sh*t through a goose.”  I am so proud of myself, and I realized today that I never wrote an update to the last post, which was so insightful and deep, but was important for me to talk about, given the struggles I’ve had and my efforts to be in a better place.

So that brings me to my latest “thing”…not that I like to live my world in 24-7 drama, but as a full time mom/wife/worker bee, sometimes that rock star life comes with drama.  And I’m really working hard to find balance in my life.  This has been something I’ve struggled with ever since I brought my oldest daughter home from the hospital, put her in the middle of our bed, looked at my husband and said “okay, so what do we do now?”  I’ve always personally struggled with my role in life and always felt like if I was to be successful in one aspect of my life it meant that other aspects of my life had to suffer.

Since I turned 40 this year, I’ve decided that the search for perfection is unattainable as we are humans and perfection, while ideal, does not exist on this planet.  I have made a conscious effort to practice this in all aspects of my life. But as someone with anxiety and a serious problem with perfectionism, this is much easier said than done.  I am constantly fraught with guilt over not giving enough attention to one aspect of my life, be it work, family, my hobbies. 

I was a knitting machine for a long time, and for a while this summer, I was sewing like a mad woman.  But school started last month and with that I had to put the sewing machine aside to make room on the kitchen table for homework and the occasional family meal.  The same with karate—I was working so hard to get my red stripe, and my sole focus for the entire summer was to achieve that personal goal.  And now that I have it, I am so much more motivated to get my red belt.  I really enjoy the advanced practice and am so proud of my achievements thus far.  But. . .

Life continues to get in the way.  I am often having to sacrifice that 2 hours a week of martial arts in favor of practicing katas in a hotel room somewhere during a work meeting, or skipping class because my kids came home from school and I knew that this was a night where hugs and family time were more important.  Or I have to put that knitting project aside because the night I was going to work on it was the only night my husband was home for a 2 week stretch.  And then work.  Oh, work.  The thing that we all would wish would go away, but somehow living in a van down by the river isn’t so appealing as it might have been when we were 20 so we do what we have to do to bring home that paycheck to pay for that roof over our heads, braces and of course, yarn and karate classes.

I’ve memorized the Serenity Prayer because my mom is a therapist who happened to run an alcohol/drug treatment program, and the prayer was etched into my head at a young age.  I used to think of it as the dominion of substance abusers, but have only recently realized that it applies to just about everyone.  Let me remind you of some of its words:

                God Grant Me the Serenity

                To Accept the Things I cannot change
                The Courage to Change the Things I Can
                And the Wisdom to Know the Difference

 

So just to break it down, what I can’t change is the actions of others and of society—I cannot force the world to bend to my will.  What I can change is my attitude towards the world and its perceived injustices. I am wise because I have finally realize that I can’t fight the momentum of the universe, but I can find my way in it and be okay with that. 

My point is (and I swear I have one) is that before I would have beat myself up over having missed a special event with my kids because I had to attend to a work issue, or a deadline to finish a baby blanket, or even a karate class, and would have found some way to strap on that Superwoman cape and accomplished it all, Martha Stewart-style.  Only Martha has an army of staff, and hey, she’s human too, having served some time in the pokey.  I’m sure Martha would approve of my decision to sometimes say, “I surrender” and just take a breath. 

So whatever journey you’re one right now, just be kind to yourself.  There’s going to be stop lights and detours and occasionally that really annoying “shut down” that gets in the way of your progress.  You have two choices—you can stomp your foot and cry about the injustices of the world and the crap hand you’ve been dealt, or you can take a deep breath and remind yourself that this is temporary, that you’ll get back to the task at hand as soon as you’re able.