I am so used to reaching for food and snacks that I don't know what else I should do with myself. One school of thought says "Replace the target food with fruits and vegetables", but another school of thought says "Overeating of food - any food - is a symptom of a different problem." Getting rid of reaching for food altogether seems like the right goal. I would like to find contentment in my life as it is. As it is, I have a great life filled with good family, love, health, a lovely home and a job many people would love.
So what's the problem?
Even though it's a job that many people would love, I'm not sure it's the right job for me. As a kid, I was always very creative. I loved art, music, poetry and I especially enjoyed writing. I should have been a writer, as evidenced by the various poems and stories I wrote as a kid. I don't really know why I didn't follow that path, except for the perhaps vulgar reason that I saw the kind of lifestyle that other paths could afford me, and the notion of relative financial freedom was more appealing than nurturing my creative side. The arts, I figured, could be a hobby I'd explore in my free time. This logic assumed that I'd have free time.
What I didn't understand was the impact that having kids has on one's available personal time. My day starts with caring for kids and helping them off to school, then it's filled with fast-paced, challenging work in an industry I'm not too passionate about anymore (but in a job I'm good at), then it ends with picking up the kids and making them a healthy dinner. And then I stare into The Hours, a three-hour abyss of caring for the kids (two kids under age four) until it's time for bed. And then, it's time for my end-of-the-day reward. I eat until I can't eat any more. A pint of ice cream, or a sleeve of Chips Ahoy equals one serving for me.
Before you imagine that I'm some kind of awful mother for referring to spending time with one's own children as "the abyss", know that I care very well for my children. I do a lot of activities with them, and I fill their lives with love and fun and diverse experiences. I'd walk through fire for them; my love for them is complete. I read parenting books and I try to incorporate what I've learned. But damn. They're irrational and emotional and caring for them in a loving way all the time is 85% just plain hard work. I want to do everything right. I want to give them a healthy foundation. You can see that we're back to the perfectionist theme again.
It seems like no one else feels this way. It seems that all the mothers I know are contented (at least more content than me), and no one complains about how hard it is to stare into The Hours with two kids under four, knowing that their future and happiness depends on a solid foundation that you might be too tired from a day's work to provide.
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