Itchy

I have a very bad tendency to spread myself mentally thin. I take on so many projects in my head (even if I'm not actually doing anything) that I become overwhelmed, which is usually quickly followed by feeling angry and then feeling out of control.

I have lots of wants, lots of things I'd like to do, all piled on top of an extensive list of things I need to do, but are a whole lot less desirable to start than the likes and wants. And when I begin trying to mentally sort it all out I hit a pretty thick brick wall of frustration.

Then I want to run away. I talk to my husband grad school in another state. I suggest he take up long haul truck driving (he does have the license for it) and we all live on a big rig and travel the country. I think about just leaving, just me, and going away somewhere, like Europe or Antartica (a la Where'd You Go Bernadette - I feel a certain kinship with the title character).

What usually happens, though, is I get mad, have myself a mini break-down and a bit of a cry. I leave, though my body is still there. I just can't be present. If I'm lucky, like I am today, my husband's home and I can get in my car and drive around by myself. Today, I drove to a gas station and bought pretzels, chocolate, and milk. I ate in my car. Then I came here, to the library.

I don't know if I feel better. I feel...okay. But I also feel like I'm wasting time, and those wants and like and needs are still pressing in on me a bit, though perhaps they are a bit more barricaded and I'm safe for a bit longer. I feel like I need to get something done, but I just don't know what that something is. It's like having an itch. You feel horribly itchy, but no matter where you scratch, how hard, how long, it just doesn't go away. The itchy feeling overwhelms you until you just want to curl up in a ball.

Here is a list of all the things I'd love to do, which I keep thinking about, but can't seem to settle, can't seem to start, for lots of different reasons (and often because they contradict themselves):

• Homeschool E. and M. either for a year or two or forever
• Teach full time
• Stay with Adult Ed. 
• Get my certification to teach at a Waldorf school
• Move to another state
• Live off the grid
• Buy a new house
• Write a book
• Have a veggie garden
• Have chickens and pigs and cows
• Live in one of those crazy tiny little houses that are only, like 500 square feet or something
• Be debt free
• Start a private or charter school
• Work in education at the state and then national level
• Actually have enough inventory to open my Etsy shop for realz
• Put together the nursing cover I designed (yes, I designed a nursing cover)
• Learn to knit really, really well
• Go to graduate school (Harvard and Antioch University are calling my name...)
• Hike places
• Travel internationally
• Travel nationally
• Sleep

You see what's floating around in my head? These aren't the things that I sit back and think, "Oh, someday..." This is all what I want now, knowing full well I likely can't have half of these things now, if ever. Yet in my head they stay and scramble to sort them all out or tell them to be quiet for a bit. And it so badly pulls my attention away from tasks at hand, people at hand, that I sometimes wonder if I'm starting to become transparent, because I am so not there. 

I often wonder when our futures will look more clear. I don't know what's going to happen a year or two down the road and perhaps it's that which makes the above list so insane. There is so much flux in our lives I wish I could just make one big huge change or have something big and huge to work towards in the not so distant future to help bring my whole life back into orbit.

Yes, I think I'm missing my gravitational center. Now I need to go find it. 

Balance

When I decided to set up this blog, the intention was to open a discussion about being and playing with your kids while working, full-time, part-time, out of the home or in. While I've certainly have been working hard to strike that balance of work and play in my family's life, it hasn't left me much time to blog about it. It's been a bit disappointing, because I really like the idea and had very badly wanted to keep up with this, but it just hasn't happened.

Now, that might be a set up for me to say, "I quit!", but I'm not.

First of all, I think that the idea of exploring how to have both a meaningful working life and a meaningful home/parenting life (and within that, meaningful relationships with your children and your partner) is a good one. Lots of parents work a "regular" job in addition to having the job of being Mom or Dad, and we often feel strapped for ideas on how to work out the time to be with our kids, be with our work, and then be with ourselves. And then, when we do find ourselves with the time, we're not always sure what to do with it (or how to identify that we've stumbled across that time). Anyway, the point is, I still want to write about this, even if I'm not sure anyone is listening.

Secondly, I've been working 35-40 hours a week. Plus being home with my kids and husband. Plus cleaning. Plus cooking. Plus, plus, plus, plus. There hasn't been a lot of room for here, but that's about to change (and then change again in the fall).

The beauty of working in the traditional education setting is that we have the summers off to decompress. And, in my case, to blog. So, yeah, it's sort of counter-intuitive to blog about playing and being with your kids as a working parent while I'll not be working, but...you do what you gotta do, right? And it'll give me time to introduce my themed weeks that I'm doing with the Girl and get more established, because, come September, I'm back to work again, but in a different capacity.

(I suppose now is an okay time to mention that I officially resigned from my position at my school and took a very part time evening position in another district and will also substitute teach one or two days a week. I will be working *maybe* 20 hours a week and the Babe and Girl won't have to go to daycare - they'll either be with me or Daddy or sometimes my parents.)

Source

The change in my schedule is going to give me, I hope, a chance to strike a balance and focus more on the things I love most: my family, my home, and my writing, and I hope to do a great deal of that writing here.

P.S.: I'm doing some more writing on my more personal blog This Domestic Life. Go check 'er out!