It's been about one week since I ended my maternity leave and went back to work.
Going from pre-Magician: balancing day job and side hustle
to
post-Magician: balancing baby and side hustle
to
post-mat leave: balancing baby and day job and side hustle
has left me feeling like I'm a certain state of chaos.
Now, I'm blessed to have a great partner in HomieLuva who not only encourages me to do my thing, but is also taking on house-husband duties and staying home with Little Magician (more about that to come on The Brown Suga Mama). That aside, it's still quite an overwhelming transition to figure out how I fit into this new world, how I succeed in this new world, and how I continue to be me in this new world.
These first few days have been an OVERWHELMING blend of waking up early, attempting to say goodbye without crying, navigating the work commute, trying to remember staff names and computer logins, being stuck in rush hour traffic, writing deadlines, event planning, trying to remember to eat dinner, baths and baby laughs and going to bed so late that I start stressing about waking up before I even fall asleep. But I'm doing it, and pushing through. It's all I can do, really.
Do you know how scary it is to feel like you don't know how to do something, but know you have no choice except to get up and do it? When Little Magician was first born, the mornings used to give me that kind of anxiety. HomieLuva would leave for work, she'd wake up, and I'd say a silent prayer just hoping to get through the day without making any huge mistakes. That fear and anxiety left me for a while, but now it's back. I don't know how to be this woman who's a mom with a full time job and engrossing side hustle - and be good at it all - but every day I get up, say a silent prayer, and head out into the world to to do the best I can. I'm not the first woman to struggle with balancing her various duties - I encounter them on social media, I read about them in magazines, and I see them in real life. It's comforting to know I'm not alone, but it's still lonely in the days where I'm figuring out what my perfect recipe for success is.
I recently decided that my theme for 2015 is going to centre around the world thrive. I'm determined to be full and fulfilled in all aspects of my life, so I'm starting to function from a place where the things I do and the decisions I make support that. There are a few things I'm committed to doing to help me thrive and to feel more settled in my multiple roles and identities:
Create room.
I'm realizing that I don't need to be doing all of the things I'm doing. Certain things have expired and are no longer serving me well, and that extra baggage of duty just adds to my stress levels. In order to make room for the things and opportunities that I know will help me thrive, I have to cut some things loose. This means saying no. This means letting go of FOMO (fear of missing out). This means remembering that quality is of more importance than quantity at this point.
Less complaining, more action.
I tend to do something that HomieLuva calls "spiraling": I get stressed about one thing, then I start bringing up everything that's going wrong, and before you know it, I'm a mess who can't find her way out of the hole she's dug herself into. Yesterday I decided that venting is important, but I need to partner it with a piece of action as well. I"m going to start trying this: whatever I vent about, I'm going to end the vent session with a declaration of action, and follow through. It's important to remember to not be paralyzed by your stress and to find ways to make even the smallest step towards something better.
Remember I'm doing fine.
In juggling all of these different roles and identities I have to remember that while things seem daunting or overwhelming in the moment, once it passes I realize "Hey - I survived. And things weren't that bad." I'm more capable than I often believe, and situations aren't usually as dire as I make them out to be in my mind. Just remembering that I am, in fact, doing OK helps to keep going when the going gets tough.
I'm able to look ahead and see a vision of myself with things more figured out than they are now. I see the Bee who is integrating the various aspects of her being, who is a walking Venn diagram with things overlapping and intersecting in harmony, who is thriving and seeing growth in the layers of her life. I can see her and I'm trying to catch up to her - running without a map and stumbling along the way, but trying to reach her nonetheless. Here's hoping that sooner or later, we meet - and start walking thriving together.