The Truth About Good Intentions
The original purpose of this blog was to provide a clever, anecdotal account of what it was like to be a full time career mother pursuing a doctorate degree. What has occurred since is......well life. My last post was almost one year ago to the date. Since then both my husband and I have: Taken different jobs, transitioned into a new parent model, cleaned up dog incidents more times that we can count, sold a home, made decisions about buying a home (haven't done it yet though), contemplated the future, tried to keep an almost four year old busy and sane, tried to keep us busy and sane....oh and tried to have time for family, marriage and friends.
What I have learned as I am one class from ABD (all but dissertation), is that life is the biggest elephant there is and indeed all you can do is take it one bite at a time. What I thought I could plan, I learned I cannot. Life will come full force whether you like it or not. I am tackling guilt lately. I feel guilty that: Blake ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner last night, stayed up till 10pm most nights last week while I did schoolwork, spends 11 hours at day care every work day, that I still want 2-4 hours to myself even though he spends time at daycare every day, I don't Pintrest like I should, I forgot almost 3 weeks full of Facebook birthday wishes.....the list goes on and on.
Guilt is crippling and can only lead to more guilt or frustration so I am working on letting it go. I am who I am and I do what I can do. As long as I strive to be my own personal best, continuing to constantly grow, there is nothing to feel guilty about. There are a million things that I would love to do! Right now the concentration is to try not to just survive day to day, but to really do one thing each day that is meaningful....meaningful to me, or to my son or to my husband when he is in town. I am not going to be a Pintrest Diva Mom, but I can do one thing each day that makes me feel like life is not a routine. If I can accomplish that, I will feel like I have accomplished something extremely important.
My son (who is three) is always telling me: "Mommy, according to my calculations....fill in the blank." Today he said: "Mommy according to my calculations you do too much homework." I had to laugh. It made me think that I am too concentrated on how to make myself look successful to others, when I should think about how I am viewed by a three year old. That is the true measure of success.
What I have learned as I am one class from ABD (all but dissertation), is that life is the biggest elephant there is and indeed all you can do is take it one bite at a time. What I thought I could plan, I learned I cannot. Life will come full force whether you like it or not. I am tackling guilt lately. I feel guilty that: Blake ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner last night, stayed up till 10pm most nights last week while I did schoolwork, spends 11 hours at day care every work day, that I still want 2-4 hours to myself even though he spends time at daycare every day, I don't Pintrest like I should, I forgot almost 3 weeks full of Facebook birthday wishes.....the list goes on and on.
Guilt is crippling and can only lead to more guilt or frustration so I am working on letting it go. I am who I am and I do what I can do. As long as I strive to be my own personal best, continuing to constantly grow, there is nothing to feel guilty about. There are a million things that I would love to do! Right now the concentration is to try not to just survive day to day, but to really do one thing each day that is meaningful....meaningful to me, or to my son or to my husband when he is in town. I am not going to be a Pintrest Diva Mom, but I can do one thing each day that makes me feel like life is not a routine. If I can accomplish that, I will feel like I have accomplished something extremely important.
My son (who is three) is always telling me: "Mommy, according to my calculations....fill in the blank." Today he said: "Mommy according to my calculations you do too much homework." I had to laugh. It made me think that I am too concentrated on how to make myself look successful to others, when I should think about how I am viewed by a three year old. That is the true measure of success.
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