I’ve been doing a lot of looking up today. In the literal sense. And by literal I mean it in the truest, most basic definition without metaphor. Not the new Merriam-Webster “definition” that now allows people too lazy to understand grammar to continue to misuse it (no, you are not literally going to explode, though I might literally never forgive M-W for this). But I digress.

I’ve been looking up. It started on my morning walk. The sky was overcast. That medium charcoal color that fills the air with heavy humidity and promises straight down, unfettered, simple rain. The fall colors in our neighborhood were beautiful against this somber sky. I kept finding myself walking under trees, watching the branches, following leaves drift from the topmost branches to the damp sidewalk below, music in my earbuds, my feet in a rhythm, my breath in my body. It was a unique sort of meditative moment. A study in the seasons. The colors seem to be particularly beautiful this fall and the leaves slow to fall creating gorgeous colors in the sky and gutters.

Later, at afternoon carpool pick up at the little guy’s preschool, the clouds were just breaking after a midmorning of rain. Bursts of blue swirled with wisps of white still holding on somewhere high above, as the breeze rustled the leaves sprinkling the car with leaves and raindrops from the trees. Just now, we waited for the school bus to return my eldest to me. The sky now that sparkling, clear, deep, heartbreaking blue that only a fall day can provide. I looked up and the crystal clearness of it brought every pine needle of the giant trees around our house in focus against that dazzling blue. The trees seemed to be reaching one final last stretch to the sun, their branches grasping for the last bit of warmth and growth before curling up in their leaf beds for the winter.

And I started thinking about why I’d spent so much of my day looking up. Certainly I look to the sky each day, but not nearly with this much frequency. I keep my head down at the computer, at the sink, at the stove, at the washing machine, on the road, on the cluttered floor, on the television, on the phone. I’m checking off tasks, getting things done, moving through my day hoping for the briefest moments of sparkle in a day otherwise filled with drudgery. I often think I might literally scream if I have to empty and refill the dishwasher one more time (a task I planned to do while the boys enjoyed a bit of post-school screen time and instead am ignoring to write this post). But the moments of sparkle make up for it all, don’t they? A surprise hug from the newly minted five year old after making silly fishy faces. Telling a joke that actually made the eight year old laugh instead of roll his eyes. A quiet moment with the hubby. A good day at the work in progress. A walk. A game. An unexpected phone call with a friend.

But the drudgery? The frustration? The doubt? The roadblocks? The lengthening to do list? The dead-end job? The new worry? The health problem? Whatever that thing is you can’t change? The thing that pulls your focus? The thing that seems to suck your soul’s energy and joy? We control the perspective on that. We are in charge of where we look. I can continue to look at the pile of dishes or I can look at the boys, heads together, playing a game quietly. I can look at the post-it reminder above my desk I seem to keep forgetting to complete or see the way the sun shines through the glass, creating wavy movement of light on the orange paper. I can look at the busy afternoon of errands and dinner prep ahead or see the gathering or our family we’ll have cocooned in our circle of light at the dining room table later. I can look at the word count on the work in progress and be discouraged by how little I wrote today, or I can look at the fact that I solved an issue in the text and just wrote this 700+ word post.

Perspective. I’m doing a lot of looking up today.

Mornings are a bit of a hodgepodge at our house. We’re up at 6:20 with the 8 year old, quietly extricating him from his room in the hopes of not waking his younger brother tucked into the bunk below. There is the rush of dressing, breakfast, lunch packing, back pack stuffing, teeth brushing and lace tying to make it out the door at 6:54 for the bus that comes shortly thereafter. Then, it’s quiet time for the hubby and me. I either take my morning walk or get some “busy work” done over email or take a long shower. By 8, it’s time to nudge the little one through breakfast, dressing and teeth brushing in order to make 9 am carpool.

But in the middle of all that, is a traditional warm, sleepy snuggle with the just waking 4 year old. He’ll emerge from his room somewhere between 7 and 8, rubbing his eyes, cowlicks defying gravity, his body still deliciously soft and warm with sleep. I assume the position in the living room arm chair, lifting him into my lap where he nuzzles under my chin and we sit, quietly, snuggled and safe and time stops. No matter how crazy our morning or how late we may be running, there is always time for the morning snuggle. It is one of the highlights of my day.

The 8 year old is tougher to pin down. The hubby and I have been instructed to hug and kiss him goodbye inside instead of at the bus stop in the mornings. I take comfort in the fact that at least he still wants the hug and kiss at all. At night, he and I are reading the Harry Potter series. He’ll curl up tight into my side, head resting on my shoulder as he follows along. Occasionally, he’ll bring a blanket to tuck around us or pull my arm around his shoulders. When we close the book, he’ll snuggle in tight, encircling me in a tight embrace.

I love my kids fiercely, even when I don’t like them very much. I try my best to tell them often that I love them. And by often, I mean more than once a day. I crave their little bodies in my arms, their sweet smelling hair under my nose, their warmth as they surrender into my love. I joke with them when they’re snuggled in tight if they will let me snuggle them when they are 16 — although the thought is terrifying to me as I imagine them as all legs and arms and strength and too big for my lap. The little one always says “Yes! Always!” barely able to imagine what the weekend looks like not to mention a day 10 years hence while the older one is already testing the boundaries of his burgeoning independence in life and movement and emotions and answers “Maybe.”

So I am banking my snuggles now. I am tickling and hugging and smooching and building up the stores of those little bodies I created now while I can because I know that one night they won’t want a good night kiss anymore, just a hug, as I tuck them in. Then they will simply hug me quickly in the living room on their way to their beds with a simple “Goodnight, mom. I love you.” Then they’ll move on to just a shout from the hall to let us know they’re headed to bed which will come close behind me knocking on doors telling them not to stay up too late because I’m headed to bed. And finally, one night in the future, the house will be quiet and empty and I will see the line of Harry Potter books on the shelf collecting dust and I will call upon these morning and evening snuggles and remember the sweet innocence of their childhoods while they are out in the world on their own armed with the love armor I’m shoring them up with now. May it be enough to give them the courage they’ll need to open their hearts to the world.

Hopefully, in this far off future, they will come home knowing that they are safe and protected and loved no matter what the world challenges them with. Maybe, just maybe, they will let me snuggle them in their adult bodies, if only for a moment, through a hug or a dance or a head resting on a shoulder. And then my babies will be mine again. And time stops. If only for a moment.

Mom guilt. We find it in the most ordinary things. The lunches we pack for school. The forgotten signed permission slip. The t-shirt in the school photo when the notice about picture day went unnoticed. The fever you missed. The movie you won’t let them see yet. The list goes on and on and on. Some of it you become inured to. Barely registering it on the seismograph of your day, letting the comment go about the possible GMOs in your kids’ jelly because you were too busy checking the labels to get the one that didn’t include high fructose corn syrup. You just can’t win ’em all.

But other harbingers of mommy guilt are harder to avoid. And they are different for all of us. The majority of these bigger guilt inducers coming from deep within our historical or cultural psyche. I found myself confronted with one in the costume aisle of Party City this weekend.

This year. Both my children will be wearing store bought Halloween costumes.

Yup.

Ugh.

I know this wouldn’t make many of you bat an eye. But growing up, every year, my mom made our costumes, or we put them together ourselves when we were old enough. Each year, we’d brainstorm ideas then head with mom over to the Piece Goods fabric store, searching the plastic pull out drawers for patterns that could accommodate our witches and 50s girls and crayons. We’d wander the aisles for fabric, picking out buttons from the wall full of a myriad of colors and sizes. I’d stare in awe as the women would measure our wares, sluicing through the fabric in one fluid motion with a pair of orange handled scissors (I still feel a deep-seated satisfaction when I get just the right kind of Christmas wrapping paper that allows me to sluice through the paper in similar fashion. Strange the things that stick with you.). At home, we’d help my mom pin the various pieces as she’d cut and sew and create that year’s costume (on top of her full-time job and mothering duties).

Never. In my childhood. Did I wear a store bought costume.

And in my naiveté, I actually thought that made me weird. In a bad way. There were times when I just wanted to go buy a Smurfette costume with the creepy plastic faces like the rest of my class and be done with it. But I’d always end up proud of them, in the end. Knowing they were real. Knowing that my mom and I had done that. I remember being a clown, Little Red Riding Hood, a hobo, a crayon, a witch. That black witch’s dress going on to become a pilgrim, Dolly Madison, a goddess and Virginia Dare for a variety of school-related projects (it’s all about the right accessories, people).

So, I feel a sort of failure each Halloween my children opt for the plastic-y store bought creations. Now, I have made a few costumes for them in the past – there was the Thomas the Train year (that only made it to three houses because the little dude was sick, total waste) and the crayon I made out of a pillowcase (a low-rent version of the felt one my mom made, but looked great, nonetheless) and last year’s minion. But this year, my astronaut and ninja will trick or treat in all their pre-fabbed glory.

A piece of me misses the homemade costume, if for no other reason than the time we spent as a family working on them. I tried to make an outing of it with the 8 year old to go look for his costume this past weekend. After 10 minutes, he’d picked his number off the wall, immune to my more creative, build-it-yourself suggestions. We then spent 5 more minutes arguing over his sword accessory since this mama knows that thing is just a weapon of little brother destruction. And that was that. A swipe of the card and a hanging of the bag in the closet when we got home and Halloween prep is over. No magic. No moment. No nothing.

Maybe it’s because they are boys and the dressing up thing doesn’t hold as many options as it did for my sister and I. Maybe we are all just too busy and I need to let it go. Maybe they are just too young to believe they can do it themselves. Maybe Halloween costumes just aren’t my thing the way they were my mom’s. After all, I don’t own a sewing machine (nor do I have any desire to do so).

But maybe next year I can institute a homemade costume edict. Force them into a little creativity. See what we all can come up with. Or maybe we’ll just buy another pre-made costume, call it a day, and spend our time doing something else as a family.

It’s strange to see how things that were so monumental to me as a child aren’t even desires of my own kids. It can be hard to let that go. But seeing what new things we create together that have become tantamount to the people they are becoming is pretty amazing, too. In 30 years, when the boys are fathers themselves, I wonder what memories they’ll hold onto?

My paternal grandfather was raised by a single mother after his father passed away when he was very young. My paternal grandmother reportedly threw rocks and taunts at Lizzie Borden’s house as a child. She was a housewife and mom to seven children, the oldest with special needs. He was a sewing machine repair man in the textile mills of Fall River, Massachusetts. They were a hard-working Catholic family who lived extremely modestly – one pair of shoes a year (despite my father’s best efforts to hide his claiming they were lost in an attempt to game the system for a new pair – my grandmother always found them), everything used and reused, dining rooms as bedrooms, hand-me-downs, and walking both ways uphill in the snow to school each day (or so I’ve been told).

Yet, somehow, my grandfather managed to purchase a small house on Martha’s Vineyard. Every summer, my grandmother would pack up the kids and take the ferry over. Several of their friends and family also stayed nearby, their proverbial village temporarily relocating for a summer away from the city. My grandfather would work all week then take the boat over to spend weekends on the island.

Seems idyllic. A way to avoid the stinking factories of the city in the summer heat. Freedom and fresh air and ocean water for the children. A small community looking out for each other.

Until you realize, one summer when your dad takes you by the old house, this was not the Vineyard of recent presidential vacations. This was a house that was little more than a structure for sleeping. There was no hot water. No washing machine (unless you count the ringer contraption). My grandmother was known to say that her summers on the island, while seemingly enviable, were, to her, simply a change of kitchen.

We just spent the Columbus Day weekend and surrounding fall break days at Bald Head Island with my father-in-law. He has a place there that would put my grandparents’ island shack to shame with its modern conveniences – washing machine, dryer, dishwasher and an ocean view. Yet, I came home exhausted. There were still meals to prepare and dishes to do, kids to entertain and trips to urgent care made more complicated by the fact that we were on an island requiring a ferry trip to the car to the town that boasted the nearest doctor and pharmacy.

Every parent knows that once you have kids a vacation is less the refreshing retreat we once knew them to be and now just more of the same with a different view. With kids, it’s not a vacation, it’s a change in location. And yet, we do it anyway. We pack up the sound machines and stuffed animals so they can sleep. We bring favorite snacks and movies and games and books to keep them entertained. We do the dishes and the showers and the pancake making because between all that is normal that comes with us on vacation are the miracles, the adventures, the memories.

The canoeing on the marsh.  

The Bocci ball on the beach.

The sandcastle building.

The seashell seeking.

The boogie boarding.

The wave jumping.

The golf cart riding.

The crab clinging to the back of the swim shirt.

The washed up dead shark on the shore.

The dolphins cruising by.

The sunsets.

The tennis.

The pelicans hugging their reflections in the waves like Narcissus.

The endless hands of Uno and Crazy Eights.

The dog walking.

The meals around the table.

The laughter.

The fun.

So I get where my grandmother was coming from. But I also know that it would have been easier to stay in the one kitchen back on the mainland. And she didn’t. She, too, knew the value of the difference.

As for me, I’m ready to go back. Despite the 14 hours round trip in the car and piles of luggage that returned full of sand, seeing my kids experience joy, try new things and smile with pure abandon was a refreshing retreat for my soul, if not for my body. But I can rest that bag of bones anywhere.

It may not always be a vacation, but sometimes, a change in location can be even better.

Moms don’t get sick days. Truer words may never have been spoken. I’ve taken the kids to the Children’s Museum with a full blown sinus infection before my doctor’s appointment, volunteered at the elementary school fair only to realize later that icky feeling wasn’t stress but a stomach bug coming on, napped on the floor while the boys played cars around my germ-riddled body. It can suck to be the one needing care when you’re the designated caregiver.

This week, however, I’ve gotten the cold the four year old brought home. Despite not feeling great, I did the Sunday morning marathon of church and sports and birthday parties finally sitting down at 5:30 to realize, yup, it wasn’t getting better. So I did something fairly uncharacteristic for me. I took Monday off. As much as any mom can, anyway. I asked the hubby to pack the 8 year old’s lunch and handle my volunteer carpool spot at the preschool. I slept in. I laid on the couch. I watched Overboard on TV like my sister and I would do when we were sick youngsters. I did manage to get dressed and pick the 4 year old up from carpool at lunch time. Then we popped in a Thomas movie and I napped again. I drank tea laced with Echinacea and took shots of elderberry syrup like it was Spring Break. I read. I rested. I snuggled with my bugs. I went to bed early and asked for another morning of hubby pinch hitting.

Today, although it’s still here and I’m not 100 percent, I’m a heckuva lot better than I would have been. With a fall break trip on the horizon it’s been hard to sit still and not run errands, pack and plan, but with a fall break trip on the horizon, it’s been tantamount that I kick this thing to the curb in order to enjoy time away with the family. So when the four year old came home from school today and asked to watch a movie, I said yes when normally the rule is no. We’re snuggled on the couch as I type this and I should still have time to sneak a nap in before the credits. And I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it.

Because sometimes, for moms, taking care of everyone else, means taking care of ourselves.

There is just so much going on in my life this week. So. Very. Much. And with that, I have had to put the writing aside. I have had to consciously tell myself to not feel guilt for what I have not been able to do because what I am doing is so very important. What I am doing is showing up in my kids’ classrooms, helping a family member with a large, meaningful task and working on some neighborhood business. All wonderful things. All fulfilling things. All taking up the time I normally reserve for writing. I know next week will be better. I know flexibility is key. I know it’s fear that fuels the guilt.

The fact of the matter is it so easy to not do the things that are hard. Even when that hard is good and rewarding. It’s easy to fall into old habits. It’s easy to find your safety blanket and refuse to let it go.

What reassures me this week is that it’s not been as easy to not do the hard things as it has been in the past. I’m in a place with my work in progress that is hard for me. I work well in snippets, which is why this blog can be so exciting for me, but I get a little panicky about sustaining a book-length manuscript. Part of me wants to avoid writing to stave off this impending wall. But I’m finding a larger part of me wants to pick up a chisel and a hammer and start taking that wall apart brick by brick so that I can see what’s on the other side. It’s exciting and scary and frustrating when I see my time this week ebbing away, keeping me from the larger task at hand in my work.

Yet, I know what my writing needs most is a break. A break to get my tools ready, to prepare myself, to be at my most focused self so that I don’t sit down with the pressure of the task ahead and feel a failure because I only had 15 minutes before carpool and the work deserves so much more than that.

So I’m in a timeout this week, working on nurturing the seed of the story inside and trying not to rush it. I’m taking the time to give my full attention to the tasks and people around me right now who need it much more than the characters on the page. They will still be there next week. They aren’t going anywhere. And if they do, well then, they probably weren’t worth being there in the first place.

As workers, mothers, wives, daughters, friends, we sometimes need to take a break and, maybe more importantly, give ourselves a break. Sacrifice comes with the territory. We need to embrace it in those moments then pick back up where we left off. As women, we don’t need to make excuses for why we did one thing over another. We need to simply make our choices and then move on to the next choice.

So this week, I choose family over writing. I choose timeout. Next week, I choose to be selfish about my writing time. The week after? Who knows? What I won’t choose is guilt.

T has been back at school since the first week in August. B finally started his last year of preschool two weeks ago. I was so excited. I was truly giddy with anticipation about the hours I would finally have to myself to focus again on writing. I prepared myself by finding two early September submission deadlines – one for a short story, the other a personal essay – so that I would have concrete tasks to accomplish. I recognized that jumping into the empty pages of the novel-idea-in-progress deep end would be too much pressure. Plus, I needed some time to shake off the summer sloth and build up my writing chops again.

B’s first day of school arrived and we were eagerly out the door. He jumped out of the car with nary a second glance (if it’s this easy for him to leave me at 4, I am shuddering at the thought of when he’s 18!). I pulled away from the smiling teacher’s faces at the curb and drove home smiling myself, eager to start my new writing adventure.

I went to my desk. I pulled up the file for the first submission. I stared at it. Nothing. I eased my way in by editing a bit of the front end and tried to pound out the next few lines, attempting to find some sort of purchase in the words to continue the writing journey forward. About 45 minutes in, I was ready to find the want ads and go back to work. 

Seriously. After 45 minutes. I was ready to throw in the towel. Box up that dream of mine again and shelve it for a braver time. Self-doubt began whispering in my ear “see, you can’t do this.” “It’s too hard.” “You have nothing to say.” “You suck.” My self-doubt isn’t very nice to me sometimes. 

I ended up watching something on the DVR and counting down the minutes until I could pick up the little guy and have a justifiable excuse for why I wasn’t writing. 

Luckily, a pep talk from the hubby that evening, some perspective and perseverance allowed me to find a rhythm. In the last 10 days, I’ve submitted both items and feel pretty darn good about the work I produced. Is it perfect? Nope. Was it great practice? For sure. Has it opened up a creative well where ideas, motivation and inspiration are suddenly bubbling to the surface? Thankfully, yes. 

I still have to work hard at drowning out self-doubt’s voice, and imagine that will be something I battle forever. Don’t we all, in some respects, continuously have to remind ourselves that we aren’t 13 anymore with bad skin and frizzy hair and no clue about life? Well, if you don’t, send me your secrets. The good news is that work begets work. The more I do, the more I have to do. The more I want to do. The more I end up doing. It might be circular logic, but it works for me. 

This week, I’m easing into adding a few additional commitments to my morning time (aka, time both kids are in school) when I usually write. I’ll be volunteering at the elementary school library on the days my preschooler stays after school for a sports class (allowing me the same amount of regular writing time plus the time to volunteer). And I’m sneaking in a yoga class one day before afternoon preschool pick-up. I hope that I’m not sabotaging my writing time with these additions, but I tried to find tasks that will also fulfill my creative self – what better why to fill my tank than by centering myself and surrounding myself with books? 

As I bask in the glow of my most recent submission, I challenge you to go out on a limb today. Call a new friend, volunteer for that big assignment at work, start a new habit, end an old habit, whatever. Yeah, life is scary a lot of the time. But it feels really good when you check under the bed and realize the only thing to fear under it was the dust collected on a forgotten pair of heels. 

See what I did there? 🙂 

Motherhood can be a lonely, soul-sucking, monotonous struggle on a good day. Cranky kids throwing Cheerios on the floor and rejecting bottles and refusing to nap can make the torture of a self-assessment and review at work seem like a cake-walk – and you may even get a raise out of a review! With kids, your source of feedback as to whether you are doing a good job is the very task at which you are working on and boy, can they be tough customers some days. Life lines during those moments are your family and friends and mentors. Those people who tell you you’re doing a good job even when it feels like you’re the worst mommy in the world for ignoring that cough overnight that you only realized was an arbiter of much more when you found your kid covered in dried vomit the next morning (I know I wasn’t the only one, right?). 

My favorite life line was my husband’s Aunt K. She had a wonderful habit of calling me out of the blue, in the middle of the day, just to see how I was doing, to chat, to share something that happened that made her think of me. She would ask me questions and listen to my answers, really listen. She’d regale me with stories and anecdotes and just when a baby would start crying or a fight break out amongst siblings, she’d tell me what a great job I was doing as a mother. A woman who worked her whole life at making the world a better place through her jobs and board appointments and mentoring, she supported me when I chose to stay home with my first child. Then, after the second child and I decided to go back to work, she was equally as supportive, encouraging me to follow my dreams while empathizing on how hard it must be to balance work and kids. 

She also had this beautiful habit of complimenting our marriage. Who does that? But Aunt K would, pointing out something in a conversation or story I told as an example of how we were doing it right, how much joy she could see the hubby and I brought to each other’s lives, constantly reminiscing about our wedding and the loving, joyous occasion it was. 

Every time we spoke, I’d hang up the phone so much better for our chat. I would joke with the hubby that my ego boost had called that day. Aunt K and I didn’t chat as often as I would have liked, but every conversation was worthwhile, satisfying and cherished. 

Aunt K passed away last night after a long battle with a body that just couldn’t power her fabulously curious mind and compassionate heart anymore. Although we had been expecting this news all week and I truly believe her soul is now free from the struggle it endured in her corporeal body, I am still left deeply empty today. 

She left behind a sister, two nephews, a niece, two nieces-in-law (I don’t know if that’s a thing, but I’m making it one), three grand nephews, a grand niece, as well as more friends, colleagues and mentees than I can count. 

I wish that her body had been as strong as her mind and heart. The world is a slightly worse off place today because she’s gone, but an infinitely better one that she was here at all. 

Godspeed, Aunt K. May you set down your burden and let your soul fly free.