24 hours

Some time ago, I was digging through my Amazon Wish List and, through links and meanderings, I found a mention of Arnold Bennett's "How to live on 24 Hours a Day." It's aimed towards working men, written a hundred years ago or so, but I sat down and read it today and I can honestly say that it's like a dare . . . someone triple dog daring you to live your life well. And the definition of well has nothing to do with money, in Mr. Bennett's world, but in using your mind during the hours we usually waste with trivialities.

I'm at a different place than I was a few years ago-- half of my children are above 13, half of them are below. I've come to realize that I will never regard mothering as my reason for existing. Yes, mothering is vital, amazing, blessed, and wonderful, and doing it well is truly important to my life and to my children. But it's not why I, as a person, exist on this planet. It's part of it, sure. But I wasn't just created to pop out perfect armies of future humans, like some swollen queen bee. God made me too complex and mysterious for that, surely He expects more for me than well-polished floors and my children memorizing the presidents in order.

I got so wrapped up in all of it when I was younger. My children had to be homeschooled, I had to prepare organic, wholesome, and homecooked meals, I had to co-sleep and practice extended breastfeeding, I had to do everything perfectly or else . . . or else . . . or else . . . .

I didn't know what would happen if I didn't.

It was like a great giant competition that I never quite lived up to, even though I was my own worst judge and critic. It didn't help that the other "mommy blogs" seemed to foster that competitive air. I can make a few quick links from a typical "mommy blog" and show you that it's still rampant today. Mothers post photographs of their toddler's "bento" lunch boxes, Twitter every movement they make from soccer to ballet to Bible study, list their busy days in full detail, from their early awakenings to their habitual blog-checking.

And that's fine. If it makes them happy, anyway, there's no harm in it. It just never made ME happy.

I don't post things here on this blog to try to make people jealous or feel inadequate or even the opposite-- I don't try to post things to make people feel superior, either.

I'm just posting things that I think may interest some people, bits from my life, things I've read online, links I've found useful. If I tell you about my desire to read the Top 100 novels, it's not to make you feel bad for reading the latest Harlequin novel. It's just a goal I'd like to meet, and I like to share the reads that I really did enjoy, just in case you might like them too. If I talk about the appliances I need to purchase, it's more in the lines of talking out loud in case someone else knows something I don't-- are steam washers really worth the extra expense?

I've got a thousand odd interests and strange obsessions. This month, my focus has been becoming debt-free, sparked by the recession. Every bit of our tax return went to pay off credit cards and some of our terribly underfunded escrow account on our house. But we're still not debt-free. We still have one sizeable credit card and three car payments. I'm hoarding bits of information about how to save money, trying everything from hanging the laundry out to dry to convincing my daughter to go to a community college for 2 years instead of going straight to university. Everything I learn is valuable, and the state of "learning" things for myself just feels good.

I guess I just hate to see the very "young" mothers fall into the trap . . . the women whose children are all under 7 or so, the ones most likely to feel like they're not measuring up, that they don't know what they're doing, and that there will be some horrible repercussions if they don't do everything perfectly. Because it simply isn't true. God loves us, more than we even love our own children. He loves us so much that it's incomprehensible. The expectations, the angst, the strife, the competitiveness . . . we do that to ourselves. And to each other, sadly.

All I want from you, today, my dear reader, is this: be yourself.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to become better, that we shouldn't attempt to improve, that we should just be base animals . . . it just means that we shouldn't pretend to be something we're not, something we're not even sure we can or want to be, just to impress someone else. Just be you. God will love you anyway, and . . . so will your family, most likely.