This weekend at the writing retreat I attended, one of the exercises was to think about why we write.
It’s a question that I hadn’t thought about for a while.
That was yesterday. But now it’s Monday. And not just any Monday, but Monday after a long weekend away that gave me hours of glorious time to myself. So naturally, the theme for the day is re-entry. In an attempt to process my re-entry feelings, I wrote a blog post about being In It, as in, in this stage of parenting where we are getting through it. Where it’s hard, and it’s even harder to carve out time to do something other than parenting.
And that post got me to thinking. I couldn’t stop feeling this. . . discontentment. And I couldn’t quite figure out where it was coming from.
The most honest thing I could come up with was that the discontentment came from life. Daily tasks and choices. The fact that choosing full time parenting sometimes feels like giving up other things I’d like to do.
Naturally, considering the idea that I was feeling dissatisfied with a life most people would love to have–the opportunity to be a stay-at-home parent–made me feel like a monster.
So I decided that maybe I was just doing this at-home parenting thing wrong. Right? Maybe if we just did more crafts or activities or if I was better at playing make-believe, everything would be fine. If I could just make a plan, I could fix it, you know?
I pulled out my journal and started to write. Because that’s what I’ve been doing this weekend. Giving myself permission to “waste time” just putting the words on the page when I feel the need to. I figured I could find the right words to put on the page that would become my plan. My solution.
And as I was writing my way through my feelings about this I realized something:
Making a plan to “fix” this implies that it is a problem. But what if it’s not a problem?
I don’t feel completely content. That’s true. And I assumed that my choices (like parenting full time) were the source of my discontent. And since I felt guilty about that so I labeled it as a problem and set about trying to fix it.
But the more I wrote, the more I became more aware that my choices (aka parenting full time) were not actually the source of my discontent. It isn’t that I don’t want to be here parenting. Because I do. This is exactly what I want.
It’s just that there are also other things I want to be doing, too. I have a thousand books to read and a million ideas for things I want to write. I want to get my master’s degree and it would be nice to work around adults sometimes or do something that I got a fancy paycheck for.
And.
If I were doing those things, I would wish I was home with my kids more.
If I feel discontentment, it’s because I want to do it all and there’s just not enough time in a day. That’s not something I can fix because it’s not a problem. Not really.
It’s life. And not just life, but a good life. A full life. I can’t imagine it any other way.
When I sat down to write, I didn’t realize that yet. But after writing for a while, I did. I don’t know how something I didn’t know can grow out of the simple act writing down what I do know. But it does.
And I think that’s magic.