We bemoaned our messy bedrooms. We hearted each other’s texts about seeing each other this summer, a joining of our clans that was two years overdue. We checked in on side projects and our husbands. But with this friend, the deeper thoughts always unfold as we go. Her mind is a palace, and the treasures pouring out leave me surprised, delighted, wanting to actually pause and pray.
Because with the driving and the dinners and the extra helping out at the school, the house isn’t where I’d want it to be. My homemaking isn’t how I’d like it to be.
And I sat and thought. I thought about instagram-perfection and how I don’t care about that anymore. But how my heart also ached at the unavoidable gaps in our home life, too. This mother-of-many-including-teens life.
Because now even when we give 100%, it’s still messy and imperfect, and we know it.
I thought about how I’d combed through my feed and removed just about every photo of my older kids, as much as I loved storing them there (helllloooooo teen privacy). I thought about how it took me two full days to tidy my entire house for super special guests once (and two full days of scolding and shouting to keep the work-in-progress clean) and that I’m not doing that again (we don’t live that way and that’s okay). I thought about my smile wrinkles, my soft skin at my waist, the silver entering my hair (not reversing these things).
My life is not on display for the world anymore, it’s more hidden, more interior, more for my family and ultimately, God, God, God.
And I knew my friend thought the same.
+ + +
We’re mid-life moms with toddlers to teens. We’re realizing that no amount of increased effort, our 100% of going at homing and mothering and wife-ing, will render perfection. Our everything will never be enough. We’re at our limit of trying, have tapped all the potential, and now know the reality that we can’t make it all happen for our families.
This sounds obvious.
Hear me out.
When my children were young and I was younger, I was often stymied at finishing a project, tidying a room, doing a workout. That’s because they’re little, I thought. That’s because I’m nursing or pregnant again. There will come a time when I can get to all these desires.
My youngest is three. He still sleeps with us, but weaned over the summer. He can trot alongside me and isn’t carried constantly. He has his own opinions. Loud ones.
So I have more freedom to get stuff done. I thought this phase would look like everything now gets done. But even on days with no work projects and our daughter with chronic illness feeling pretty okay, the flow of the day never goes as anticipated. We read a lot of books instead of cleaning out a closet. Anthony takes our oldest to Adoration around bedtime and I hustle the others to bed solo, ignoring the laundry pile, the taxes, and the emails stacked high because the 1st grader needs a cuddle. I cook a big dinner instead of doing my ironing and mending.
There isn’t enough time for this many people and these many tasks.
+ + +
With this thought in mind, this thought that your everything, your 100% simply will not be enough to meet the needs of those you love, the needs of your home, your work, your relationships, and that it’s THAT imperfection, that gap, the one that no filters can cover, that’s the burden we carry: what are you going to do about it?
Whether you live with a clan or live alone. Whether you have no health struggles or many. Whether your life is filled with friends or you’re a hermit. The illusion we can give ourselves everything shatters the older we get.
But more keenly to the interior life, I cannot even bring myself to the place of inner silence I desire. I cannot create the calm, the order, the discipline to focus on Love. I must receive even those graces.
My posture of receptivity starts with acknowledging my lack. Then I allow myself to be loved into trusting my lack is not a deficit. It’s a simple spiritual reality. So I can’t do everything and that’s okay. Then I allow God to do it for me. I give Him the gift of my need. And how He delights in my honest, simple call for help.
Help me, help me, You do it.
Happy mid-life-ing friends. The stage where we’ve reached the end of our abilities only to be found by Love.
Love,
Nell
ps. My first of four talks (short! under 10 mins!) that I delivered for Ascension Press hit this past week. I have to say, my house DOES look rather sparkling in the background, but that’s production’s magic for sure. This one is about prayer in a busy life. I hope you enjoy it! Link:
Ohhh this reflection. Thank you. I need to share a special (lengthy!) note that my mom wrote about parenting teens.
Side note: I'm reading Cardinal Sarah's book in silence and wow. It is transformative. A further reminder to live with our lives on display for God, like you said.
I always appreciate deeply what you wrote.
Oh my heart, yes, every word. Lately the litany of undones and “why can’t I?” is stealing my sleep again, and this morning my circling thoughts finally landed on the litany of surrender instead. It felt like full-body relief: Jesus, take care of everything and this is the whole wisdom.