Redefined Juliet

The past few days, weeks, months...hell...years...I have been feeling...just discontent.

It is not something that goes away, just something that sort of... ebbs and flows as the seasons change.

I try to tie it into other parts of my life. Try to justify it. Try to understand it. Now I think I am just accepting that it is simply a part of me. A part of who I am. Maybe a part of Christianity. Maybe a part of human existence. Maybe a part of womanhood. The answer escapes me now.

I look around me and everything is broken.

Today a baby bird was pushed out of its nest by its parents and I ran with a cloth to put it back inside.

When I picked it up, I could feel the warmth of its blood. The beating of its small heart. It was beautiful. Magic. A miracle. I put it back inside the nest next to its sibling.

Then I took my son to the library.

When I got home, I learned that the parents had pushed the baby back out of the nest. My husband looked up this particular species of bird and found that they push their babies out of the nest to live on the ground for a few days, feeding them there, until they are strong enough to fly.

To me, it seemed this cruel twist of fate that the two birds could not manage to fit into the nest any longer together. Here it was just the way nature had of helping the babies to be mature - to head out on their own.

How often we do this. Stifle ourselves and others, trying to put them back into the warmth of the nest when what they need in order to fly is just a few days on the ground.

We stuff them full of self esteem and pride and expect this to make them worthy of greatness.

I have no idea what the "right" answers are.

I find myself, as a mother, struggling daily with my highly gifted child and my highly active child who may or may not also be gifted, clueless more often than not. Desperate for answers and unable to find them.

I am not sure of the conclusion I am hoping to read in this particular blog. I just want to write and this seemed the place to do it.

I want to break out of my skin and put on something new.

I see the girls in college, the ones just starting life and I find myself jealous of them. Making decisions I should have made. I do not regret my life now - I love my children, my husband... but I wish I would have taken better advantage of my time as a young adult. Stretched my wings a little before I had them somewhat clipped by responsibilities.

I admit I am not sure where I should go from here. If there is anywhere to go.

A friend of mine wrote to me on facebook and told me that I need to understand that life comes in phases. During this time when my children are young I have to understand that I cannnot have the things that I value so much in life - theatre, time to myself, time to write, whatever. My life is supposed to be about my children.

I understand this. I feel that much of my life is about my children. But I refuse to lose myself in that. I refuse to be the mother who, twenty years from now, is sitting at home with no plans, no future, no interests - dreaming of the days when she was changing diapers.

I have fun with my kids. I work toward being a good mother. I devour book after book to help me in finding the "right" education for my children. I homeschool. I love them and the "Mom" part of me. But that is not the entirety of who I am.

I hope that it never is. And yet society still makes me feel guilty about this.

The truth is - you cannot do everything. You cannot be the best mom and the best in your career and the best artist and the best writer and the best player on your softball team. You might be able to do a few of these things if you give up sleeping. Balance is the key. I am not sure that we ever figure out balance in our lives until we are too feeble to get around on our own. Then we are forced to change our very human habits a bit.

I realize this blog is drivel for the most part. I think I might be making some kind of point in there. Not sure where it is. Maybe you can glean a little nugget of gold for yourself. Maybe you just wasted a few minutes of your time reading.