Don't mind the mess

I struggle with feelings of inadequacy when it comes to how organized and clean my home is. I know I'm not alone in this. It's a frequently discussed topic among women, especially moms. There are books and TV series, reels with 15 second sound bites of tips, and the ever present need to explain or excuse your house if someone comes over. 

Many women have expressed to me how highly anxious it makes them to have a messy (I now call "lived-in") house. For some they can't go to bed with a dirty dish in the sink. For others like me, it's when the messes reach a certain tipping point. We all draw the line in different places. To a certain extent that's normal and maybe even human to want some order, but the anxiety seems pervasive and intense for many women, especially if someone else, even a friend sees it. 

 I once had an eye opening and affirming experience.  For purposes of privacy I will keep this vague. There was a mom of a baby and toddler who helped our family out in an urgent situation, very last minute, which meant I was in her home on short notice. I didn't know her very well. As might be expected with a baby and a toddler, the home was very messy. She didn't make any statement explaining or trying to excuse it and I found it refreshing, really refreshing. I admired her solid sense of self. I felt gratitude for how she was helping us. 

It also made me feel less alone. 

The other day I was reading Michelle Obama's new release The Light We Carry, and the topic of worth and matter against our own standards, not our country's or culture's standards stood out. 

Before I share it, I want to note that I believe she was primarily speaking to those who are marginalized and those in minority groups. It spoke to me as a woman and a writer but I want to note that I come from a position of privilege as a white middle class person in a first world country. I want to be clear about that before I share what I personally gleaned from it and how it has helped me to grow. 

Ms. Obama writes, " When you start to rewrite the story of not mattering, you start to find a new creative center. You remove yourself from other people's mirrors and begin speaking more fully from your own experience, your own knowing place. ....It's also helpful to acknowledge what makes this work so difficult. We are tasked with trying to write our own script over layers and layers of already written ones. We have to try to put our truth over narratives that have long suggested we don't fit, don't belong or don't register at all. These stories have been enshrined by tradition and cemented in every day life, in many cases forming the literal back drop to our days. They unconsciously shape our conception of both self and other. They purport to tell us who is lesser and who is greater, who is strong and who is weak. They have anointed heroes and established norms: This is who matters. This is what success looks like. This is what  doctor looks like, what a scientist looks like, what a mother looks like, what a senator looks like, what a criminal looks like, what a victory looks like... .. It's hard to dream about what's not visible. You can't readily strive toward what you don't see. Rewriting the story of not mattering takes both courage and persistence." 

I had an epiphany moment after reading this wisdom that maybe I can rewrite the norms and standards in areas where I have followed our culture's norms without even realizing it and have thus boxed myself in. It spoke to me as a woman and a mother, two roles that have historically not been valued and have been defined by a patriarchal culture.

A clean home means a hardworking and worthy woman/mother in our culture. It's an unspoken standard but it's there. I don't know of many men who grapple with how organized their home is, or at least not to the extent that women do. But maybe crumbs on the floor and dishes in the sink mean hard working and worthy because it was a mother who sat with her child during their emotional meltdown to be present and hold space for those emotions instead of spending that time cleaning. 

I also saw my messes through a new lens, a foreign perspective that stunned me. I was in bed journaling when I looked at the mountain high stack of books and notebooks on my dusty nightstand, spilling in an untidy pile on the floor and I realized I was looking at my creativity. 

My creative mind was manifesting in the physical world. This is how my creativity fuels. It's in spurts and jolts, in unfinished books and tattered notebooks. It symbolized the looseness, the free associating, the randomness required to fuel creativity. My process has improved as I've allowed not only my physical materials to be messy but also the writing process which can be really ugly and disorganized as it's being birthed. Letting go in other areas of my life (my home, expectations, my perfectionism, to name a few) has allowed my creativity the space it needs and to be accepted as an ugly duckling in the first, second and third draft.

The messy artist is not a new notion. But recognizing it and most importantly accepting it, even loving it was the change in me. Letting go of our culture's standards of tidy and clean equaling acceptable, successful, and worthy. 

It begs the question. If a woman is boxed in by those definitions (often unaware), what is being stifled in her? What is being kept from manifesting in the world? For me it's creativity and brainstorming. Maybe the mess represents something else for other women,  and frees their minds and activities in other ways. In ways that fully express who they are as a person rather than as a culturally decided definition of a woman who keeps up appearances, has it all together, and knows exactly where everything is for everyone. 

There's several other ways that I don't fit in the mold of modern society, some areas that I feel comfortable expressing and others I don't, but didn't realize it until I read this excerpt from Ms. Obama. I didn't realize that it was probably fear of going outside of the norm, of being rejected, or laughed at by the world.  But at what cost? I've decided I too want a solid sense of self, much like the glimpse I saw of that mother who greeted me into her messy home. 

I'm 41 and this is my midlife epiphany. I will not be stifled by others' opinions that are generated by centuries of cultural ideas that this what it means to "be a woman," "be a mother", "be an artist", be "an anything I discover that I am." 

I'm also a never ending work in process and change takes time, so there's a good chance I will clean before you come over but I'm going to incrementally allow you to see more of "me" in the mess and do less, and just maybe you will breathe a sigh of relief and permission. 

2023 will not be my year

2023 will not be my year. It won't be my best year ever. It will be a year of joy and sadness, anger and excitement, disappointment and anticipation- the myriad of human emotions. It will be a continuation of everything I'm practicing now- healthy things I started in 2020, new ideas that hatched recently, and the starting and stopping and sometimes sliding "backwards" in my personal growth. I may discover new things I want to start in July. I may keep it simple and find joy in tinkering around in my garden with a cup of hot coffee.

A man made construct of a new year does not encompass me. There's rough days when I regress to the old me of the early 2000s. My thoughts and feelings flow and are influenced by memories of 2021. I often circle back to old habits, old ways of being that I dislike. But that's okay. It's part of being human. 

Goals make sense for some of my life experiences such as graduating college, or when I started my career. But they don't work for my soul or personal growth. Instead I am strengthening my intuitive muscle, listening to my own inner voice of wisdom--something I started some years ago and then got away from, and recently rediscovered. 

It takes away the pressure of having to do "insert healthy change" every day or every week and instead practicing, "what do I need right now?" or "What do I need today?" Usually it's simple and it's not always fun or interesting or what I necessarily even want to do or think I should be doing. 

Often, it's that I need to eat something, I need a nap, or I need to get off the simulation of my phone. Or I need to put on a show for the kids so I can just have a moment to close my eyes and rest my mind. When I'm not in the middle of our busy routine and I have more space it might be, "I need to journal" or "I need to go to yoga." 

As soon as a "should" enters my mind, it's a red flag that it's not my inner wisdom speaking.

Sometimes my mind will interject and say, "Well, you should do some yoga stretches or journal" or any other sort of healthy behavior, and my deep knowing says, "No, actually you need to rest and it's okay to rest." Learning that came as a shock. I was used to identifying my mind's incessant demands of chores and to-do lists but it was a profound discovery that truly listening to what will benefit me in that moment is more important than forcing some healthy behavior. 

I'm still very much practicing but I suspect that listening to that inner voice consistently does lead to the fulfillment of broader goals that  will nourish and make me happy.  I think it will result in personal satisfaction and joy, some of the tenets that goals often promise. 

For a concrete example, if I had a goal of writing every day this year, I would likely have days that I don't feel up to it, I feel too tired, or my toddler wakes up at 4 am and there's no creative energy. I will likely not meet that goal, and not because I'm not capable, but because I went about it the wrong way. It set me up on the wrong path with too much pressure, too much anxiety, and forcing anything on humans rarely results in success. 

However, if I follow that inner voice, if I keep becoming more aware of it and learn to differentiate it from the multitude of other thoughts (very hard to do in this busy loud world), I will have some days where it tells me to rest or just soak in the sunrise, which in turn fuels my creativity (for a later date). There will also be days when the inner voice says, "yes, lets write!" with excitement rather than the forced dread of reaching a broader goal.

In the end it does result in what feels right and healthy and satisfying, much like the goal idea we had initially, and yet along the journey of following that voice, we don't always know what the outcome will be. Maybe it will be me writing a lot of poems and stories and blogs. Or maybe it will fuel different creativity that I never imagined but is equally fulfilling. 

So that's what I will continue to practice and will likely forget during stressful periods in 2023, but if I come back to it like I have previous years, I know this is the right path for me. What other angles might you take to reach personal fulfillment? My path way is likely one of many.

The invisible work of a mother

My work as a stay at home mother often feels invisible. As if there's nothing to show for it at the end of the day. Everyone being alive, clothed and fed doesn't seem good enough. What did I do? Where's the finished product? How did two hours go by with seemingly so little getting accomplished?

When I go to my outside of the home job (part-time), there are numbers to show for my productivity. The number of reviews I completed in an eight hour day. The amount of time I spent on each. A clear outcome on each case, whether it was approved or denied. As I complete each one, I can check it off my list.

But on the days I wear my stay at home mom cap, there's a lot of gray area. What was the outcome of that tantrum? Did I handle that well? Have I damaged my kid and his first memory will be of me  yelling after a very long morning? Is it enough that we just barely survived the day alive, clothed and fed? Where's my outcome? Where's my thank you email from my superior saying, "Hey, Terri, thanks for going the extra mile this morning and sticking your guns on getting the toddler to brush her teeth."

Normally I go through my day like a clucking mama hen. Your T-shirt is on backwards. Please hand me the spoon (instead of throwing it across the dining room). Where did I put the grocery list? Please get a pair of socks on.  Familiar? You've read a thousand similar blogs.

But instead of hurdling at velocity speed through the day and collapsing at 9:21 pm on the couch after a very prolonged two hour bedtime routine, I have become an astute observer of my life. Usually all I can manage is zoning out by scrolling mindlessly through Facebook or a TV show, but I've been working on stepping out of my emotions and the drama of the day to really notice what's going on.

One morning I forced myself to really observe myself and my children while I did the dishes after breakfast instead of letting my mind run wild with all the things that had to be done for the day. I became mindful. I counted the interruptions. There were 7 interruption from my tiny people.

Also, at one point my 17 month old was hanging on my leg. At another point she bumped her chin and was crying. I still had not eaten breakfast and it was 10 am. Dishes take an exorbitantly longer amount of time when you are interrupted 7 plus times. I simply noticed this and gave myself some grace. No wonder it feels like I have nothing to show for my day because it took over 2 hours to clean the kitchen, all the while I was attending to my children's needs and then it was time to start lunch and begin the madness all over again. A task that should be simple becomes a mountain.

It would be easy to see the outcome as, "I got the dishes done" if I view it the same way I look at my outside the home job since dishes are the only tangible completed task. However, I soothed my toddler. I redirected my four year old, multiple times. I assisted each with tasks they aren't able to complete independently. I was in constant mental tasking- prioritizing, assessing, processing, evaluating, all so to meet everyone's needs the best I could and keep the home functioning and operating.

No one really sees all this underground work. My little people don't because they're just little, and it's their job to simply be kids.

I don't have anyone to vent to other than the occasional text to another mom, phone barely grasped in my slippery dish soapy hands. However, that's not the same as venting to a colleague for a few minutes in person in the cubicle next door to yours who is in immediate reach and can instantly provide empathy with you since they're in the same boat. A stay at home mom is a lone wolf. There's a lot of talk about tribes. But we're not set up in a culture that's conducive to tribe living. Unless you happen to be lucky enough to live next door to another stay at home mom and can share a mimosa in the backyard morning sun in between temper tantrums.

There's a mental stamina needed in those who stay home with their children. Some days I am baffled as to why it feels so hard. I'm "just" home with my kids. However, when I force myself to step back and observe, I see how mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting it is to stay home as a caregiver to kids. Mentally, the planning, organizing, strategizing, vigilance, and brainstorming solutions. Emotionally being both a nurturer and a sounding board for the wide range of emotions seen in an immature and  still developing brain. Physically there's the lifting, running, protecting, and maintaining safety during temper tantrums.

I see you lone wolf mother. You're not alone. Your work is often invisible but I know all that you do. This blog only touches one percent of it.

Life and Death

I experienced life and death simultaneously. Not my own life or death, but the emotions of it as a witness, intimately connected with one person going through the journey of death and one person's new life and birth. My mother-in-law was dying and I was pregnant with my daughter.

I felt very alone in this unique experience. I tried to explain it and everything fell flat. Few truly understood. Intense joy and equally intense grief at the same time. Excitement and fear. Eager anticipation and dread.

I was frustrated because I could never fully be present with just one experience or the other. The other was always in the back of my mind, making it very confusing. I became very angry. By trying to attend to both, I felt like I was missing everything or failing at it all. While logically I knew I was asking myself to do the impossible- to uphold some perfect ideal of how I wanted to experience both situations, the frustration of it was fierce.

If all I do is allow the grief to flood me and if it consumes my thoughts, I will miss out on my pregnancy. If all I do is focus on the baby and planning and joy, I will miss out on these last moments and the attention and presence I wanted to give my mother-in-law. But to do it both at the same time was a daunting task. I didn't know how.

So I did my best. I switched off and on. Back and forth. When I was focused on one person, my entire focus was on them and I tuned everything out as well as I could. It was the best I could manage. I still have times though when my heart skips a beat and I feel a different loss. That I couldn't be there more for my mother-in-law. That I couldn't be there more for my baby and pregnancy.

One thing it taught me is how common and normal it is to experience two seemingly opposite emotions at the same time. While it might not be that common to experience the extremes that I went through, it's made me aware of how sometime I can feel happy and sad at the same time. Depression and sadness might be in the background. Or vice versa.

Whenever I felt buffeted by the uncontrollable ocean waves of death, I clung to joy and hope of the new life inside of me.

Then just days before my due date my husband's stepmother passed away unexpectedly.
So much death. Three family deaths during the pregnancy.
My grandmother, mother-in-law, and step mother-in-law.

A lack of control.
It was too much to process. Three deaths and an upcoming birth.
I felt a sudden shift. I became hyper-focused on the new life and birth only days away.

I wanted a natural delivery without medications for many reasons but after these deaths, that goal became even more important to me. Despite the physical pain, it was still life. It was pain with a purpose after witnessing pain without purpose-- or seemingly so. It was a way to feel my body healthy and vibrantly working the way it was designed. I viewed the pain as good and purposeful and better understood that pain doesn't have to equal fear.

Despite how painful labor was, it made me feel alive. There was some sort of reassurance in that. I was rooted in my physical self. It was painful but somehow it made me feel more alive.

While I clung to the pregnancy as a light of hope in the midst of what appeared dreary, over a year later I can also see how maybe the deaths prepared me for the "letting go" and trust that is required in labor and delivery of a baby. There was nothing I could do to stop the dying process- one loved one who died slowly and the other in a quick flash. That lack of control was difficult.


No amount of worrying changed it, no amount of research or talking about it, no amount of problem solving, no amount of denial. It was life playing out on its own. It's the same with labor. I did much better with "letting go", trusting my body, riding the wave of physical pain. The less I tightened my body and resisted it, the less pain I perceived. My labor mantras focused on this. My mind had to trust my body for a change.

Birth, life and death formed a perfect circle and had more commonalities than one would think. This might be because death is actually rebirth, a different kind of birth. A beginning instead of solely an end. Maybe birth on earth is an ending that we're unaware of.

*Quote taken from Ram Dass

Mom and toddler hurdles: Let emotions be

My daughter was whining and I was tuning it out, coffee in hand, on the couch. I was irritable. She was irritable. It was the day after vacation and it was an unpleasant post vacation day of unpacking, laundry, and getting back into the routine.

I started saying and doing things that might distract her from whining because I was already cranky and it was grating on my ears, only making me more irritable. I suggested this. Explained that. I was trying to make her happy. I did a lot of talking.

I realized then how absurd it was. I was cranky. Why couldn't she just be cranky? It didn't make sense to me because we had just had a really nice vacation but there it was. So I let it be.

I said, "I'm cranky and you're cranky."
That's it.
Let the emotion be.
Don't judge it or hide it or reprimand it or cover it up with superficiality.

So we were two crankys with a vacation hangover.

I learned two lessons.

1. Experiencing what it's like to ride the wave of an emotion instead of burying it.

2. Allowing my daughter to have a negative emotion and not becoming anxious over it.

Maybe the high of a good vacation is followed by an equivalent low.
Maybe emotions don't need to be controlled, no matter what the age. If given the chance, they make an appearance, pass through, and then dissipate.