Mother's Weekend

This year, I celebrated Mother’s Day in style…I took the whole weekend off. I’ve been feeling burnt out lately and I had to just get away or risk a complete mental and emotional breakdown. As a mom and a writer, I juggle a lot of things. Most of the time, I can handle it. But I think that never getting a vacation from my job as a mom was starting to wear on me a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a stay-at-home mom. But if I have to hear my kids say, "What is this stuff?" while looking at whatever’s on their dinner plate or "Kiki kicked me in the…" or "oops, I accidentally wrote all over the walls," one more time, I’m going to go mad. I don’t want to go more mad, I’m mad enough as it is.

So I took the whole weekend off.

I’m fortunate to have a spouse who is very supportive of me. He not only was wiling to give me the time off, he was happy to have a chance to spend that time with his kids. It’s sad that I have to look at this as being lucky, rather than accepting this as a given, but I know a lot of dads who have no time for their kids and think their spouse’s only dream in life is to cater to the family’s every wishes. That is not me.

Because it’s still officially my day off, I’ll only say this one thing about my lovely weekend…On my first day off, I drove to the ocean and watched the waves. It was lovely. I didn’t have to worry that someone was going to fall on the rocks or into the water and drown or deal with someone asking for food because they’re hungry. I just sat there, watching. Anyway, you know how you can’t help but think that some things are immutable? Well, while I was sitting on those giant boulders, I thought them unbreakable. They seemed so solid beneath me. Then a giant wave smashed against them and I realized that nothing could withstand that kind of beating forever. Even the seemingly most unchangeable thing I can think of will eventually be broken. Still, those rocks will take the beating for as long as they can. They will endure until they can endure no more.

And that’s like life. It wears you down, and eventually will grind you to dust (nice imagery, I know, but true). Until then, you stand tall and you survive. There simply are times in life when you just have to endure as best you can. And oftentimes, that’s being a mom trying to raise her kids to not only survive to adulthood, but be good, capable people, as well.

On those bad days I’ll just have to remind myself that I am like the rock, and I shall endure. And so shall you.

Happy Mother’s Day, Moms!