this is a season

I go back to work in less than a month. This thought is somewhat frightening to me. Thank all of them – Buddha, Jesus, the Great Mother, the Positive Energy Source, etc – that I work from home. I feel so intensely for those mommas that have to leave their babies. Yes, the break is nice. The feeling that you are part human, not 100% mom, has to be luxurious.

But you leave your baby – most often with a stranger – and that pulls at my heart too much to even contemplate day care or a nanny right now.

So, I’m grateful that I work from home. Very grateful. However, right now I can’t imagine juggling the responsibilities of my job AND taking care of my 4-piece chicken nuggets. I don’t know where that time is. The time to focus on spreadsheets, PowerPoints, and process. The time to speak to adults about pricing tools or operational aspects of our business. I know the time is there….somewhere. I’ve been down this road before with Evie when I returned to work post-birth with her. But, in these minutes that I live in now, it seems impossible. I’ve been struggle-bussing it since Marina was born at the end of August and have not yet found my groove. I had my groove once, and when you have had it, it’s really hard to function outside of that groove.

My schedule, pre-Marina Hays, was somewhat predictable and controllable. I could get up most days at 4AM. Get my shit done. Whether that shit was work work, the blog, or just general life planning. I had 2+ hours to myself for most days to accomplish whatever I wanted. Once my world woke up, I was taking care of them…finding snippets in between to work.

I made it work too. I was so fucking productive I could just high-five myself every damn day. Yeah me! I’m a damn superstar.

But right now, I am lucky to find an hour a day COMBINED. I steal this time between feedings, soccer, carline, doctor appointments, and naps. Vince has been wonderful, helping where he can, but he needs to work too. I tag the older half kids (G and Scar) and they help….it’s just not the same. And that voice in my mind (you’ll remember her as Nancy) likes to remind me constantly that I haven’t completed the things on my ever-growing to-do list. It’s frustrating for the planner and producer in me to not get things done. I get so overwhelmed some days that I could scream into a pillow if I thought that would help.

Then…me, the real me, reminds myself that this is just a season. This time of no time for myself. This will not last. I know this with 100% certainty. The girls will grow older, their needs will quickly change. I will find time again….and some day, I won’t have to look for time. I will have too much of it. Because they will grow so much that my house will be silent where it was once too loud to have a phone conversation. My floors will be spotless where they were once covered in paper scraps, slime, and crumbs. I will be able to pee in peace when I once had an audience asking me to play puppy dogs. They will drive themselves to get food instead of crying for me to hurry up and warm the damn bottle. They won’t need me like they do now. And that will be its own kind of hard.

So, I will keep telling myself “this is a season” and it will change. I need to do the best I can to enjoy this while it lasts.