We are six months into the new phase of life with me staying home with the gremlins and with Frank thriving, providing, and profiling in his career in cannabis (such a cool thing to say). The girls and I have tested several schedules that poke and prod at our time management skills, but we have mostly gone unscheduled and off the cuff with our adventures by randomly exploring as much of metro-Denver as possible, including the non-friendly kid areas where I had a sixth-sense to say “Don’t touch that!” every five seconds of the walking tour.
We succeeded most days in exploring, learning, and being stubborn, and if the weather was shaky (which it rarely was in this hunk of a state), we shelled up at home like little pistachios and spoke to no one; we also played the hermit crab game on brilliant sunny days if we were not feeling it – gasp! Emotions are hard, socialization is draining, and life is too short. Stay home and relax if you want, said my conscience. Continue to work on your new journey into the fine arts; the children will entertain themselves.
[Black] Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
What the Conscience forgot was that while life was sweet, screen time was a possessive demon. As I continued to hand the iPad to my toddler, I would knowingly think to myself, how can a child entertain themselves if they have not yet learned the meaning of entertainment? The answer is this: children cannot entertain themselves unless taught to entertain themselves, they can only absorb their environment as it is given to them. Amidst the many projects I was taking on for myself, the boat tipped over from the weight of the iPad; screen time was enveloping our lives and brought with it temper tantrums, refusal to listen, and inability to be creative and concoct simple moments of fun. No, I am not against screentime, but I am opposed to it replacing my role as a mother, which somehow I allowed it to do when I was not looking. Life is a balance, everything is moderation.
Several events led to our destruction at home – I became busy with my business, Souled Out, and decided to pursue craft fairs in November, meaning a month leading up to it I was kicking up new projects like a bucking bronco; a batch of soap here, a slew of tie-dye there; thrifting like a champ and building a website like the fake IT person I never knew myself to be. Many of these projects had to be done sans children and with extreme focus, so I gave the toddler the black mirror and let her figure it out herself. Thankfully, we shielded the baby from most of this as she took long naps and I conducted my work during that time. Whew, at least one of us was spared from the black hole of artificial learning.
I Was Just Guessing At Numbers and Figures, Pulling the Puzzles Apart
I operate my life like a scientist, constantly observing, analyzing, and concluding. I peered in at my children’s behavior during this time of (dare I say) neglect, and I noticed that they were rotting from the inside, not to mention I too was decomposing internally from not letting my parent flag fly. As I became more submerged in my personal goals, I realized I was off by a mile trying to hit the mark on my main goal – spending quality time teaching my children how to live.
My body and mind reached the depths of the dumps that you only get to when you need a wake-up call; my kids clung to me like bush-babies, begging me to play blocks with them or paint with them, and I kept saying, “I will after I do x, y, and z.” Totally wrong of me, but I was focusing on my task at hand, not theirs. For an A-type personality, disobeying your to-do list is a criminal offense. And allowing the pressures to pile up can mean a volcanic eruption for all parts of life; serenity now, insanity later.
Don’t Call It a Comeback
My family continued the struggle for balance, thus I generated the idea to revive ourselves (or myself) with a two-week writing walkabout at my parent’s place in Florida; the focuses being to dissect and to develop a process for untangling this mess of words I had jotted down over the months, to categorize my thoughts (an enormous undertaking), to slice and dice words (kill those darlings, people, kill them and never look back), and to inundate my brain with new ideas of the unknown (give me inspiration or give me death).
The most important key to this rejuvination was that my children would concurrently continue their education of life since my parents would be caring for and showing them the world. My husband, Frank, could also benefit from this since three of his four women would flee the house for two weeks, leaving him with his favorite female of all, our dog, Rigby. I am not naive and do not believe there is a fool in sight who would pass up that deal.
These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, and That’s Just What They’ll Do
I am on Day 12 of the walkabout, and I have absorbed and accomplished much more than I thought possible, all in different ways I knew possible. Contrary to what you want to hear, I did not make much headway with my book(s). I arrived in Florida with sixty pages of content, three storylines, and a gallon of ideas for Souled Out (I get thirsty just thinking about them). I had little to no organization for all three stories, but I had vigor, faith, and a few skeletons of summaries that told me to keep on swimming no matter what turbulent waves I encounter.
The best thing I packed in my suitcase was the pile of guts to keep on going.
You Grieve, You Learn, You Choke, You Learn, You Laugh, You Learn, You Choose, You Learn
What I expected to do while I was down here:
Shell up, write twenty or more pages of my stories, summarize and create outlines for my stories, and edit my stories.
Some of this happened, but mostly not.
What I actually did while I was down here:
- (Re)discovered that writing is in my top five most difficult challenges of life. If you are an aspiring writer, do not let anyone tell you differently – being a writer is TOUGH. As I worked through editing 30+ pages of content, my brain became defeated. Hell, I even removed an earlier posted writing entry from my blog webpage out of sheer embarrassment for previous pieces of work I had written. What in the hell was I thinking when I wrote this? This part makes zero sense. I sound like an idiot here, there, and everywhere. What I failed to realize is that writing is not supposed to make sense the first, second, or even third time around. It takes practice, diligence, discipline, and the ability to be kind to yourself and your thoughts. I might repost it, but right now I am still coping and building back my confidence.
- Realized that I am fit for writing. Name a job where you can make your own decisions, write your own rules, and still be challenged without interference from other social opinions. So far, I have found one role that fits that description, and that is writing. I am certain this perception I have of writing will change as time evolves, but for now, I am challenging myself in a way that I never thought possible – MY WAY. I do not have someone telling me to meet a metric that means nothing, I do not have an employee verbally thrashing at me for my wild yet strategic ideas that could make the world a better place if one gave it a chance, I do not have anyone dictating how to display and share my words. Writing is mine, and I am writing. It is the biggest challenge (aside from breastfeeding, raising a toddler, and strengthening my marriage) that I have known to date, and it is one of the best. I will get defeated, I will be torn down, I will most definitely try to quit at least three times, but I will continue knowing that I have found something that I can call my own.
- Created a weekly schedule for 2023. I went from being a strictly scheduled corporate corpse for over ten years to being a free-range chicken; the transition was similar to putting a saltwater fish in a freshwater pond. I came near to exploding, imploding, and bursting into smithereens; I did too much of what I wanted, I drank too much alcohol, I indulged in other vices, and I tried to have my cake and eat it too. I became off-balance, and something had to be done. My structure-loving heart was doing whatever it wanted, and it was going berserk. I have since offset this imbalance by creating a weekly schedule, one that I will try out, morph, tweak, and mold until it becomes outdated and I have to start over again on a completely new schedule. Such is life. I am proud of my schedule as it has more family time budgeted than work time, which is essentially what we were looking for in the first place, eh?
- Researched how to sell smoked cheese. Because Frank and I have been smoking cheese. And it tastes like whatever heaven would taste like if it existed. And I want to share it, but I cannot afford to give it out for free. So I need to figure out how to package it without the feds coming to get me.
jamiepittsfreelance.com 