Meet Me in the Middle

I am not a Pinterest mom. In fact, those memes with pictures of other moms’ Pinterest fails would be more like me if I even bothered to try with the Pinterest craft projects, seasonal decor, and fancy recipes.

For a long time, I related most to the social media posts that said things like, “Kept the kids alive today, and took a shower! #success!” Although, if we’re being honest, it is winter, and I may not have showered. That’s between me and God.

But I realize I have moved beyond survival mode to a place where I have better intentions, hopes and dreams for myself and my children, and short- and long-term goals. I make reasonably healthy meals a couple of times a week (a significant increase from zero times a week), and while my coat doesn’t match my purse and my purse doesn’t match my shoes, my actual clothing generally looks okay. And for the first time in my life, I am doing something really adult and using name-brand skin care on my face every day. It caused me physical pain to choose the “Wrinkle Expert 35+” moisturizer, but that’s reality. I have to see it for what it is in order to have any hope of improving it. This is #success for me now.

I bought an unnecessarily complicated app that has enabled me to create daily and weekly chore lists for myself and the kids. I post these lists on the refrigerator every Sunday. The last item on the lists is “check list every day for completion,” but despite this, our success rate is about 45%. For a while, I would feel white hot rage when the girls, YET AGAIN, forgot to let the chickens out until 1 in the afternoon, because for goodness sake, these are live animals and it says so right there in black and white and HOW HARD IS IT ANYWAY???

But now I have a level of acceptance of the situation. When I post the lists, things go much more smoothly than when I don’t. There’s always an element of failure, but there is also a big element of improvement.

Right now, I am happily, comfortably, #somewhereinthemiddle. I’d like to video myself riding a flawless Grand Prix dressage test on my wonderful schoolmaster Vinny. And I’d like to write more and see my name in a byline in some real publications. These things aren’t happening yet, but at least I can dream them. For every shortcoming (way behind on dog grooming; Charlotte has terrible mats that I’ll have to scissor off), there is some accomplishment (finally ordered new pants for Cosmo so he is no longer squeezed like a baby sausage into 9-month clothing).

I wanted to write this post to remind myself that I have come a long way. I am no longer totally buried by my circumstances and the daily demands of my life. But I also wanted to write it to say to so many of you that I feel what you’re going through. You’re failing, but not completely. Not at all. You’re getting better sometimes – maybe even often. You have moments of brilliance. You have ridiculous, embarrassing lapses in memory and judgment, but you’ve learned go easy on yourself. You’ve been through a lot and this is hard. I really just want to raise a glass and say cheers to everyone who is, like me, #somewhereinthemiddle.