Is it just me? Or is the idea of back to school not sitting well with you too? A long time ago someone told me that the little years are the “quiet years”. I almost choked on my coffee when hearing that, because if you have toddlers and babies, the little years seem anything but quiet! But now I realize what they were saying because when your kids are little, you keep them close. Now, as my kids are getting older and we are almost completely out of the baby/toddler stage…I see my schedule filling up with activities and this season of parenting feels so much busier than the last. Next week we will be thrown into busy season again with my kids starting both school and soccer at the same time (I mean are they trying to kill us parents?). But all I want to do is stay in this summer season of family togetherness, adventures, and chill time. I knew all these upcoming changes was making me nervous and anxious, and I realized that I needed to ask myself a deeper question:
What about the upcoming school year is making me feel so anxious?
The answer was that I was nervous about losing myself again in this back to school season. I was dreading juggling all my kids activities, and not having space for what I want to do.
Mamas…we are not robots! We cannot operate like robots! We need to pursue our passions along with supporting our kids passions too. But how?
More space and grace dear.
I knew more space was needed in my life, but then a friend mentioned the word grace to me…and I was like, yes I need that too. I needed to be kinder to myself and allow myself to realize that it’s ok. It’s ok to make space for what I like to do even if it means saying no to good things. Because, somewhere in the past 6 months I’ve lost myself to my kids schedules. I didn’t make anytime for myself and what resulted was one exhausted and cranky mama. This can’t happen again. I have got to start prioritizing myself again. That feels ugly to write down…but at the same time freeing to write. And I need to give myself all the grace that loving myself is important too.
When I was able to identify this need in my life…I felt so much more hopeful about this school year. I’ve started brainstorming all the things I want to do and then finding space in my schedule to do some of them. But hello, lets not forget my other word grace. Grace is important here too because Lord knows I won’t get to all of the things I think I should be doing, but that is the beautiful thing about grace. He fills in all my gaps, I can lay down my striving to be the perfect wife, mom, friend, and just focus on doing the next thing that is set before me.
What about you? Can you relate? Where can you add more space and grace into your life in this coming year? I’d love to hear! Let’s chat about it in the comments!