So much wasted, and this moment keeps slipping away...

"You cannot raise happy, secure, emotionally well-adjusted children, revel in a fabulous marriage, and work a sixty-hour week. You want to, I know. So do I. But we can't. It is physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually impossible. We have tried. We have failed." - Sarah Ban Breathnach

Ah, but we think it is our fault that we have failed. That there is something wrong with us because we cannot do this. We don't often think that it just isn't possible and what's more - WE SHOULDN'T BE DOING IT. I gave up a long time ago trying to work the sixty hour work week but I still hold myself to unattainable standards of what I should be able to accomplish. I consider my job to be spending time with my kids, playing with them, taking them places, reading to them, stretching their minds. It's why I choose to stay at home. I also think I can have a spotless house with the laundry always clean and great food always on the table at 6:30. And then yeah I also want an incredible marriage that thrills me and stimulates me and fulfills me. Somehow in there I am to also find time to stimulate my own mind so that I am a fairly interesting person and not just a shell of the person I used to be. I can't do it. I just can't. And the biggest thing I fight everyday is to say - that's okay.

"Shouldn't I be capable of all that?", my perfectionist self asks. "Isn't that what the modern life promises us?" I am learning that my answer should be "NO!!!" You really can't have it ALL. You can have pieces of what you want at certain times and what you need to learn to do is to enjoy and fully live into what you can have right at that moment. Maybe an oppotunity for something diffeent will be right around the corner. But for NOW we have to find a way to be happy and enjoy that happiness with those around us and show them how much we love and appreciate them. That's all we HAVE to do.

"You probably can have it all, just not all at the same time. And...you might have to make certain compromises when your children are small. But your children are going to be small for a very short period of time...it will go by in the blink of an eye, and you will only be 40, 50, or 60 with another 15 to 25 years ahead of you." - Anna Quindlen

All I can say is ENJOY your life and the people you love. It seems almost counterproductive to have to work to remind yourself to STOP and just enjoy but in today's society where the only thing that seems to matter is how much stuff you have, or what rank you've achieved, or how much harder you can work, it is the best thing you can do. I always want everything I want right NOW and never stop to appreciate what I already have. Today I want to enjoy the not perfect but very nice house I live in, the not perfect but acceptable body that I inhabit, the not perfect but wonderful craziness of life with my kids, and my not perfect but beautiful relationship with my husband. And this entry is far from perfect but for a moment I just need to appreciate that I got a chance to write it. Now I need to look in on my kids.