Monday, September 19, 2011

It's all about balance . . . isn't it?

As a young woman, beginning my life, I was told over and over again that I could have it all. I could be the working mom. I could be a professional. I could do it all. The only limit was my dreams.

But that's not true.

You can't live all of your dreams at once, unless you are incredibly lucky. And let's face it, most of us are not that lucky.

To succeed as a mom, you need to invest a lot of time. To succeed as a wife, you need to invest a lot of time. To succeed professionally, you need to invest a lot of time. To maintain sanity, you need time to yourself.

All of it takes time. But you can't buy time. So you can't buy your dreams. You must choose.  And even if you think you have no choice, you are still choosing. 

Everyone will tell you that the trick is to find the correct balance of each facet of life to feel like you haven't given up on everything.

Balance.

That's what it's all about. Or so they try to make us believe. I constantly read articles on how to achieve balance. They all promise the same thing: if you balance your life, you WILL be happy.

But, you know what I think?

I think achieving balance is bull.  The people who sell us "balance" are the same ones who once told me the only limit was my dreams.  Life makes it difficult, if not impossible, to balance everything. There will always be something tipping the scales and attempting to knock us down.

The real trick is to stay on the line when the wind is blowing you over. You don't have to be balanced all the time. You just have to make sure you don't fall off.

I've been pretty close to falling the last couple of weeks. In order to stay on the line though, I had to let go of blogging and reading blogs for a while.  I hope some of the other things can fall away soon, so I can return to the blogosphere, but for today, I wanted you all to know that I'm still here.

1 comment:

  1. You take care. It's all about staying afloat and seeing another day. You can do it.

    ReplyDelete

Having a child with a CHD is like being given an extra sense---the true ability to appreciate life. Each breath, each hug, each meal is a blessing when you've watched your child live off a ventilator, trapped in an ICU bed, being fed through a tube. Each minute is a miracle when you've watched your child almost die and come back to you.
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