Sometimes when doing a complicated math problem, and I mean the page long kind, I'd get to the end only to find I hadn't reached the intended or expected result. I could read through my work, scrutinizing each step, and still not be able to find my mistake. Many times, the best next thing to do would be to walk away, think about something else, often discarding the whole page in the trash trusting that the correct thinking would still be there when I revisited the problem later. In other words, sometimes the best approach was to start completely over.
Sometimes I feel like doing that as a parent. I don't mean discard my children (haha that's a joke), I mean discard all my thinking, all my analyzing and critiquing and scrutinizing, catch my breath and come back trusting that the right principles will still be found when I look at it all again.
I often feel like such a patsy (that's a funny expression. I'm using it correctly right? I just think it's a fitting word here) as a mother. I'm sure people look at me and wonder why I don't take charge, why I'm not more structured and disciplined with my children. Other times I feel like I do nothing but harp on them all day and that I am too mean and ornery. I often simply don't know what I'm doing and feel completely lost. But I think that if I could just step away for a minute, I might have some ideas of what I think is right. Every long once in a while I find myself responding back to my self criticism with what I really think.
What I'd like to throw away as I realize I'm not reaching the intended results:
*Caring what anyone else thinks. I know this should be an easy one, at least according to some people. But I think I worry so much what everyone thinks and I project so much into their responses or reactions etc. I want to get that out of my working solution.
*Things from the past? Can I say that? Like I want to make them not exist. Obviously I can't do that but maybe somehow I could throw them away so they don't have an effect on my thinking and acting? Like living with other people and feeling, both times, like I didn't really have a home to bring my baby to. Being scared and feeling like a child, and I'll point out a child like I never was in my own home growing up- disrespected, ill-considered- when I was supposed to be becoming a mother. Losing faith in my significant other, perhaps being disillusioned. Somehow giving up my choices, my right to exist and have say in my own life because of a lack of money.
*Trying to be perfect. This is such a hard one for me. It's like I'm afraid of letting go of this drive. I don't know what I'm afraid of and I suppose it doesn't matter. But I just am constantly looking at myself and what I'm doing and if it's right and how it could be better and what's wrong and could use improvement. Being afraid of making choices because I might get them wrong. Looking for answers, asking everyone I think might have some insight what they think. Not trusting myself because I'm not an authority on the subject only to find out I know as much or more as the "experts" which, by the way is unsettling. Reaching for some picture I don't know if it's really even formed in my head of what it's all supposed to look like. Thinking I can fix it all. Thinking if I was just doing it right, it would all flow nicely and no one would ever be sad or upset or argue and they would just do what they were supposed to do and we'd all just be perfect. Like that's really what I want for my children?
I had the thought the other day that I need to take charge of this ship- not sure why I said it that way- but I got a picture in my head of a racing boat, motorized, sleek, going fast toward a passage through something in the water and I thought "but I don't want to drive that boat. We are sitting over here in our sail boat, laughing and enjoying the scenery." THAT, perhaps, is what I need to identify. My little sail boat on the water of life.
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