Make Time to Mother You, Too

Mothering me isn’t as easy as I thought.

I set out to mother me every day of 100 Days of Mothering but stopped on Day 22.

I still kept on mothering me, but not as perfectly as I had hoped. Then I flat out stopped mothering me. I simply got lost.

Lost mothering my daughter, who needed extra help with her three children 5, 3 and 1  after the youngest one got sick for a week.

Lost mothering my grandbabies, especially when the little one ended up in the emergency room needing IV fluids after a week of diarrhea. (She’s fine now.)

Lost mothering my two nieces who spent a lovely week with me.

Lost mothering my own mother, who has Alzheimer’s, and depends on me to pick up groceries and personal things.

Lost mothering my husband, who ended up in the hospital for a week after complications from a one-day surgery. (He’s fine now.)

Lost mothering my ten siblings after we sold the family home in June. I saved all the memories and mementos I could and created shadow boxes for my ten siblings and all their children and my mom. 

I still have yet to make mine.

Do I get an F in mothering me? No. That wouldn’t be very mothering now, would it?

But I do need to regroup and get re-aligned on the inside before I post more about this journey on the outside. 

It’s so easy to mother everyone but me. I thought posting on the blog would help make me accountable to do it. And it did, for a while. But posting wasn’t as strong as the pull inside of me. It’s like a tide in me that takes over from my childhood in that sea of 11 children. I end up helping everyone else, even at the expense of me.

So God sent me a gift. A sinus infection that blew out my ear drum. Having a perforated eardrum has made me put on the brakes. It’s not a punishment for neglecting me; it’s a gift from the Universe to remind me to listen to me. To listen to what my body and heart and soul need and want and are trying to tell me. I can actually hear my own pulse beating stronger than ever in the good ear, which makes me smile.

Right now it’s time to sink deeper and quietly into my life. To spend more time resting on my porch swing. To being grounded in the Earth. To enjoy more solitude and silence. To refill my well with joy and laughter and music and writing that makes my heart relax and smile.

To make room in my life for me means that I have to say No. Some people won’t like that, but I think in time, they might actually admire it and try it out themselves.

Writer Anne Lamott is credited for saying, “I live by the spiritual truth that ‘No’ is a complete sentence.”

It’s also sometimes the holiest answer you can give.