Set your Priorities

Written by Jamie Bessette

So here I am sitting on a gym floor an hour away from where we live. I left the house with my daughter this morning at 6:00 to claim this lovely spot by 7:30. Actually, I was happy that it wasn't one of those mornings that we had to leave by 4:30. At least I brought my stadium chair so it will take an hour before by butt gets numb. It's in these moments that I think about the laundry that needs to be done and the toilets that need to be cleaned and I ask myself “What's really realistic of me and my time?”

Right now my daughter is warming up for a volleyball game, the first in today’s tournament. When it's time to play ball I'll stop typing and watch, but it's in these small moments I try to find time to write. I am just like you. I work, I have two kids, both with busy schedules, and somewhere in all this I try to find more time to work on this, my passion. I have dreamt about helping teachers and parents for almost 10 years and I am finally doing it. Why didn’t I start earlier? Time. At the time I came up with this idea my kids weren’t even in school yet. I didn’t think I could manage it all. Well to my disappointment, things are just as busy- if not busier and I don’t want to wait until I am an empty nester before starting this journey. That is why I sit on gym floors and type my heart out to you all. Is it ideal? No. Is it the way life works? Yes.

Fast forward to 7:30 PM. The tournament is over, my daughter’s team won the championship of her bracket. We head to dinner and then make the drive home. I finally climb in bed somewhere around 10. This totally throws off my schedule because I try to be in bed by 8:30, even on the weekend. I get “tangry” (tired +angry) when under slept and it's not pretty!

So back to my original question, what’s realistic?

Is it realistic to expect to do it all? Work, manage the home front, manage kids activities? Where is the time for yourself? Time to workout, read, or sleep? I have struggled with this question since I got married and I had to think about someone other than myself. I would consider myself a pretty organized, self-motivated person. I don’t procrastinate and I don't spend a lot of time lounging around therefore by the end of the day I'm exhausted. Even with this said, I find myself getting further and further behind with the daily tasks that I need to complete. I have tried to organize my life so that I'm as efficient as possible but yet I still have a hard time squeezing everything into my day. When my kids were babies, I used to joke that I could replace my toilet if the hard water stains got so bad that I couldn’t remove them because it had been so long since I’d cleaned it and I’d much rather spend time with my kids. However I am beginning to think that joke is going to become my reality. I'm sure I'm not alone and this is not a battle that only I face.

Then there is the whole concept of “keeping up with the Jones’” but let’s not go there. At the end of the day I ask myself a few simple questions. 1. Did I work hard today? 2. Did I help others? And 3. Was I acting in a way that I’m being true to myself? If I did then I have learned to be ok with myself and the day that has passed.

And as a test about what is important in your life answer this question. Was your Grandma’s toilet spotless every day? My guess is you probably have no clue, and that’s my point.