I guess it finally hit that point because I woke up yesterday morning and thought, “We can’t live like this anymore.” The house was just…beyond. I guess it’s because I’ve been so focused on my WIP since my parents left (in March!) that I haven’t really looked around and seen the scary levels things had reached.
So, since 40% of my children were gone (to work on the farm with my parents), I figured that was potentially 40% less mess to try to work against (you moms know what I mean. Two steps forward, three steps back when it’s you against the sludgy tide of 5 kids). I put the remaining three on high alert and as soon as swim team was over with, they shifted into high gear. Well, low gear, which is as much as I can ask at their ages of 10, 8 and 5.
It was about 7 ½ hours of concerted effort, including vacuuming along the baseboards and throwing out newspapers since March and reorganizing the scary tall bookshelf in the girls’ room, a task not for the faint of heart.) What a relief!
I read an article yesterday by a wonderful, beautiful, Newberry Award winning author who has 4 kids. She’s prolific as a writer, and she spilled her secrets of how she does it all. It was good to read, and I learned a lot about the focus she has to have in order to be what she is. I loved her dedication to God and her family. It was inspiring.
However, I have no desire to do it all, if doing it all means sacrificing almost everything else for writing.
I will never write all the ideas that are in my head. I will never finish all the writing projects I’ve started. I simply will not sacrifice enough to become a “great” writer. I do feel that drive in me that I “must” write. I’ve been a journal writer since I was 7. If I couldn’t write, I’d feel so lost. I remember once I’d lost a journal from 2002. Panic hit me and this thought: How will I prove I was alive? But I won’t pretend I’m turning it into a career.
Every woman gives her life for what she believes, Joan of Arc declared.
I have to choose. I choose every day how I give my life. There are days I need to realign. There are days when I sigh with relief thinking I gave it correctly. There are days when I botch it so badly all I can do is sing the song from Wicked, “Loathing, unadulterated loathing”–directed at myself. However, the best days’ ends, when I reflect on them, are days when I’ve given myself, my day to others. There’s a place for writing, but it cannot displace everything else. Not for me.
(But really, I should throw in those cleaning days a little more often.)
Preschool graduation. She made me the necklace.
I love it!
Thanks, Lisa. You are such a good example of balance. You are an example of someone who has it all.
Amen. I read the same blog posting and I have the same desire and passion to write, but the publishing dream has to include a well-balanced Mom and a clean house or it’s no dream at all. 🙂 I did the full time student thing for two years and the whole family bent over backwards to help with dinner, the house, etc. They knew there was an end goal. It wouldn’t always be like that. But I want to believe I can have it all. Heck, I’ve written books, crocheted blankets for friends and children, AND cleaned my house. I think we CAN have it all. 🙂 And btw, my children’s bookshelf looks messy even the day after I’ve cleaned it. *sigh* A sign of a busy, happy child. 🙂
Man, that going-to-school-as-a-mom thing terrifies me. I really admire you for making that happen! And kudos to your family for the sacrifice they made, as well.
I think I shall henceforth refer to that bookshelf in my girls’ room as “The Tower of Terror.”
I would love the link to that article.
I will look for it and email it to you, Valerie. I couldn’t find it earlier or I would’ve included it in the article. The problem is I read it on my little tablet, and now it seems lost to the universe. I’m so not techy.
Thank you Jennifer for posting this. I totally feel like this too and I don’t even have a novel out yet. I feel like my family is suffering but I want to be home with them and not at my day-job so I am motivated for something wonderful to help me stay home with my kids. Totally conflicted.
Rebekah, the one thing I’ve learned about writing novels as an income source (with four published now) is that it’s … not a reliable income source. It’s something we have to do for the love of it, and those periodic royalty checks are just like a little bonus. !!!
You will probably laugh as you read this, Jennifer, but when I come up for air and realize the house is a disaster, the kids are living on ramen and pizza, and the laundry is spilling out into the hallway, down the hall, and threatening to creep into the living room, I think about you. You always understand what my son keeps saying, but few people get: you will out live your work. No matter how big a best seller anyone writes, no matter how many lives she inspired, there’s going to come a point in our existence when it just doesn’t matter. Relationships and family memories matter, feeling good about yourself and the work you’re doing matters; the rest is just fluff. (Now excuse me while I kick the pizza crust father under the table–company’s coming!)
Oh, baby. You OUTED me. The ONLY reason we cleaned? Company was coming for Family Home Evening last night. Otherwise? I promise I never would have noticed the filth. (They had a 10 month old baby, and all of a sudden I realized the entire floor was covered with dry pinto beans. From a game. Three weeks ago. We call them “choke-ables.”)
Thanks for the compliment. I often get this out of whack. I hope that I have my great life’s work be something that does outlive me — meaning my family, their love for each other, the way they feel about themselves.
I read a good quote the other morning: We should stop thinking so much about what others will think of us and concentrate on what others think of themselves because they’ve been with us. I needed to read that, and realign.
Survival tip: If you slide the tablecloth to just the right angle, no one can see the pizza crust under the table, at least not from the living room.
You are beautiful, Jennifer. Thanks for taking a moment to be honest. And remember that there will be a season when the kids are grown up and your days can be filled more with what you choose. Maybe all those ideas, tucked away will find their way to our bookshelves in years to come. Besides I just heard on the radio that keeping kids too clean is making them sick more often. Dirt don’t hurt, most of the time. 😉
Exactly! I have always said this, Anika. Which is why we just don’t bathe. Er, I mean. Well, sometimes. But not super often. Here’s a short little essay I wrote about this very topic. 🙂 http://www.ldsmag.com/article/9318?Itemid=
Jennifer, I laughed, smiled and nodded my head reading this! Although I only have three, I completely relate. Company coming is just about the only reason to clean around here. With the farm, the constant after-school kid related movement, me working, hubby away for the entire year and the few moments I do have spent writing…cleaning is the LOWEST item on the list! And we eat pasta and rice a LOT.
I think, though, that I’m showing the kids that when you are passionate about something and you have a dream, sometimes less important stuff has to fall away to make it happen. And pinto beans (or dog hair/cat hair/horse hair in my case) on the floor are not important! The kids see a comfy home and mom doing what she loves doing. In the end your kids won’t remember the beans. They’ll remember mom. 🙂
Haha! Thanks, Brenda. And you’re right. They WON’T remember the beans. They can’t even see them now. 🙂
I don’t know how you do it with your husband gone. It’s bad enough if he comes home 20 minutes late. I’m pulling my hair out at that point. A year gone? They’d have to lock me up. And feed me on pinto beans.
BTW, when I mentioned to my daughter that I “liked making up stories,” she was shocked. (This is the 8 year old.) In a way, I kind of counted that as a success: I’d paid enough attention to her that she barely knew I had another life. On the other hand, she does have a tendency toward a situational awareness problem, so it may actually be no accomplishment at all.
Thanks for reading, Brenda!
Great post and great response to it, Jennifer! AND SO RIGHT!
Thanks so much, Elsie! You are a writer with little ones, so I am sure you know just what I mean!