Low Standards

This is it! - I'm lowering my standards! I've promised myself that I will simply show up and write with whatever amount of time I have. Today that time is short indeed - even though I have lots to say.

Low standards won't be the worst thing. Maybe I can live with a messy house and a messy life - if only to carve out those precious few minutes that I can spend with myself.

Last night I fully understood what drives some women to hand off their kids and just get in the car and drive - very fast and very far away. Its not simply the mind-numbing fatigue of living your life in carefully measured 3 or 4 hour blocks - knowing that a precious and vulnerable little creature is depending on you to meet their every need.

Its not simply that in the span of those 3 or 4 hours, you invest 2 to 3 of them in being fully present to that infant. The remaining hour, if you are lucky, lets you shower or eat or go to the bathroom - or, if you are very fortunate, spend time with your other children or spouse.

What drives women to the point where they want to bolt - at least in my estimation- is that they can feel themselves slipping away. Its easy to begin to forget who you are in this cycle. Its easy to feel your dreams slip away, to forget what it is to do something small for yourself, to be able to shrug off the need to be the one who is responsible for responding to every cry and call when its all you have done for days on end.

All it takes is one hour, a bath, time to write, time to read or simply sit outside without needing to multi-task, desperately seek sleep or nutrition , or be at someone's beck and call. One hour when all you do is breathe and just be you. At least that is what I have discovered.

I love them all - and I love me too. That is why I'm lowering my standards - and tonight I'm happy just to write for 10 minutes in order to remember who I am ......