Time alone is a hot commodity when you’re a parent, working or not. Without it, I’ve learned, it’s easy to forget yourself.
Now that my girls are six and eight, I am starting to catch a glimpse of what it might be like to once more do the things most people without children take for granted: visit the bathroom by myself, grocery shop alone, and eat a meal while it still has some relative temperature appropriateness.
Which is perhaps why, when my sister and I recently took our mom to Mexico for her 70th birthday, I was able to really enjoy my time away. Sure, when I was surrounded by squealing kids I felt a twinge of guilt for not having brought mine along — but then I remembered how footloose and fancy-free I was. And ordered another margarita.
The first couple of days I concentrated on relaxing and unwinding the perennial knots in my back, and focused on my out breath — in a greatly metaphoric sense. The go-go-go of being a mom who works from home, juggling multiple jobs, leads me to live more in my head than in my heart, and this vacation gave me a lot of time to reflect on that.
This observation appeared to me like a tiny crack in the shell of an egg: I was able to see a splinter of light while still surrounded by darkness — which, while cramped and awkward, is comfortably familiar. I don’t know what is outside of that crack but I hope that by bringing my consciousness to it, I will be able to recognize things in my life — people in my life — for the gifts that they are.
Relationships are rarely uncomplicated. That is the human experience. And sometimes, I believe, our greatest teachers are those relationships that do not come with ease, the ones in which we are triggered most often point like a compass to the personal work that must be done.
It is the individuals whom we both love and struggle with that are mirrors for our growth and development. It may be hard to see that someone who sets us off, whether they are a spouse, parent, child or friend, is in fact the answer to what we are seeking. However, if you can envision this for even a moment, it may ultimately shift everything in your world.
I caught a glimpse of this while sitting seaside as I breathed in the rich variegated blue of the ocean, and truthfully, it was more striking than anything the Caribbean had to offer in its expansive beauty.
Later that afternoon when I returned to my room to shower and get ready for dinner (a meal fully prepared by other people with no dishes to wash), I was filled with gratitude for the days I already had and the few remaining, so this revelation might sink in before I headed home and ultimately had to share the bathroom once more with my little teachers.
Kirsten Andrews offers Simplicity Parenting courses, workshops and private consultations in the Corridor and Lower Mainland. Visit Sea To Sky Simplicity Parenting on Facebook or www.SeaToSkySimplicityParenting.com.
