I have always said that I don’t set goals, and that is true to some extent. I don’t do like many people and have a committed list of things I want to accomplish or things I want to achieve. However, there have always been visions of what I want to be like. When I was in high school I didn’t have a chosen career, but only knew that I wanted to live in New York, wear a suit and have a successful “career.” Later, when I did land a job outside of college (in my Southern hometown light years away from New York) I still never was able to say “I want to aspire to that job.” It wasn’t until I was in that job that I realized I had landed where I wanted to be. And as I look back I realize that there were people, leaders, that I watched all along the way and created my vision based on lessons from each of them.
When I was pregnant I had a “vision” of what I wanted to look like as a mother. I guess one might say it was the hippy soccer mom! I wanted to demonstrate and inspire creativity and openness in my children while setting a supreme example of a powerful woman for my daughter. (wish I’d thought to look at all the ways I might fail in that example!)
Then one day I saw a vision that allowed me to marry my two loosely defined goals in the form of an article in Working Mother magazine. There was a profile of a “successful career woman and mother.” It is only now that I can laugh at the depiction of this woman or even the image that it conveyed. For how is success truly defined of either? That was the last time I read that magazine; I had gotten what I needed from its contents – my new vision, my new goal.
I can’t even remember what the woman did, something political perhaps. What I do remember is that the focus was on her schedule. It went something like this:
5 am – wake up and have coffee and write plan for the day, put dinner in crockpot
5:30 am – run 2 miles on the treadmill
6:15 am – shower and dress
7:00 am – wake kids and make breakfast
8:00 am – drop kids off at school
8:30 am – breakfast with a client
9:30 am – arrive at office and answer emails
10:00 am – board meeting
11:30 am – lunch with prospective clients (en route to destination make follow-up calls and schedule parent/teacher conferences)
1:00 pm – Return to office and work on upcoming proposal
2:30 pm – pick kids up from school and drop in for quick meeting with teacher
4:00 pm – back to the office to follow-up on board meeting action items and delegate remaining proposal sections to team for completion
6:00 pm – have quick dinner with family
7:00 pm – drop children off at dance and soccer practices. While kids are in practice have coffee with friends
9:00 pm – read bedtime stories and tuck children into bed
10:00 pm – check children’s homework, fill out forms to be returned to school, unpack lunchboxes, layout clothes for tomorrow, do a load of laundry, respond to personal emails , clean kitchen from dinner
12:00 pm – get into bed and read a few minutes of one of three books currently reading before falling asleep
I read that and immediately thought somewhere in the depths of my mind that I wanted to be like that. My thought was “Wow, look at everything she does!” She is amazing. She does it all. So, although subconsciously, that became my guiding light – to be like the profile in the magazine and have a daily schedule that personified my ability to do it all and keep all the fires burning. When you think about it my goal wasn’t as far-fetched as it now sounds. Young women are given thousands of images everyday of these superheroes, so much so that there are books written on the sometimes fatal side effects of these overachievers. The message is clear – do it all or you’re a failure.
I read that article many years ago, so I’m sure there are missing and incorrect pieces of the schedule. But, it isn’t too difficult to dictate the times or events – I only have to go so far as to look at my own daily routine. I guess you could say I have arrived at my destination – my goal has been met. I once received one of those annoying forwarded emails that was about the difference between a man and a woman and it outlined a schedule much like this except it was the difference in what happens when a woman says she’s ready to go to bed and when a man says the same statement. The gist was that a man goes straight to bed, but there is a whole agenda that follows a woman’s desire to fall into the sheets. The friend that forwarded the message put in the subject line “this is you.” I took it as a compliment.
Sadly, when I arrived at my destination I eventually realized what was missing from the article and my own story as well. Notice that nowhere in that schedule or routine is there mention of her husband or any other support system. In my young, naïve, awestruck interpretation I didn’t know enough to be able to know that there was one in the background – somewhere. Hell, it could have even mentioned that, but that was background noise to me – all I could hear was HER crack of thunder. A couple of years and a personal earthquake later I finally realize that no person can accomplish these things without a support system. And that most of the time you have to reach out and (gasp) ask for that help and support. Be it a husband, wife, parents, paid assistants, childcare or all of the above. The fact is she wasn’t doing it alone. She couldn’t. Or maybe she could, but not for very long… as I soon found out.
So when I set my mind to the goal I thought very little of what I needed from my husband, or from anyone for that matter. I was going to be woman and people were going to hear me roar. And essentially that is what happened. Over the years my career progressed, I had another child, I started to become involved in dance and fitness, I grew a social circle of amazing girlfriends, I scheduled play dates and birthday parties, I put all of the organization tactics into motion (make weekly menus, lay out clothes the night before, etc. etc). Multitasking became my birthright. Through it all I kept a pulse on my marriage (or at least I thought I did). Having read all of the books I knew the importance of maintaining your relationship, making time for dates and always communicating. I knew these things were important, but I went about them all wrong.
I never once said to my husband “I need you to…..” I hinted, or conveyed that it would be nice. But I never laid the blueprint for my needs.
I want to rewrite this article for every young woman, mother, grandmother and overscheduled female to read. Maybe someday my message will be clear. Sisters, all of this is within your grasp. Each and every one of us has the ability to be an amazing mother, a devoted wife, a giving friend, a loving daughter, a pillar of our community, a familiar face at the PTA, and the head seat at the conference table. However (and that is one heavy ass however, let me tell you!), there are so many things we must realize about our limitations. How many articles have we all read in that preach the “me” time rules. What they nor us understands is how incredibly hard it can be to demand that “me” time or any time that might make our super capes come floating down around our perfectly toned hips. We view asking for help as the ultimate sign of weakness, regardless of if we are strong enough to admit it. We only just read “Every Sunday morning I have an hour to myself to gaze upon the rising sun and reflect on all I’m grateful for.” (and blah, blah, blah) Person quoted doesn’t get the opportunity to say “It took me 10 years to be able to demand that time for myself.” Or “When I take this time I have to realize and accept that 2 more loads of laundry back-up in that very moment.”
So, I’ve determined my own list of “It’s OKs”
It’s Ok to
- Invite your friends over only to have them realize your house is LIVED in
- Buy cookies for the school Halloween party; sugar is sugar to those chubby little fingers, they really don’t care where they came from
- Let your children dress themselves and not match
- Gain a pant or suit size
- Say “I’m escaping to my room” and just lay there in the darkness when you do
- Tell your husband you need nothing more than to be held
- Find utter and pure joy in buying yourself a new CD, or book, or nail polish
- Only do laundry when it’s absolutely necessary
- Have PB&J sandwiches and potato chips for dinner
- Beg, plead and scream for the help you need and deserve
Oh ladies, I could post pages and pages of “It’s OKs,” but the message is simple. We can all be superheroes, but only as long as the first person we save is ourselves. Until we know what brings us pure joy and balance and make their presence our primary goal we are destroying instead of creating. We’re destroying ourselves, visions of balance for our children, love in our relationships and promotions in those so sought after careers. But when we can learn and live our own list of “It’s OKs” and experience joy every day we are able to create. Create balance , beauty and harmony around us…. It will make you a superhero!
