Here’s the Thing About Balance…
Balance is a word or a concept that has been on my mind many times this past year. I’ve described my work life balance as a delicate one. I have so many different components all woven together so specifically. If any one of them should shift the smallest bit, it would throw everything else off completely. I think many moms can relate to this, especially those that work part time or full time. The whole arrangement only works when everything is balanced perfectly. That is to say if it works at all, and who gets to really assess such a thing. Would we say it works because everyone arrives where they need to be in an acceptably timely manner? Or because we show up at all for our jobs and careers, even if we are phoning it in? Because that pay check gets cashed? We might see those things and think the whole thing works, that this is what success looks like. But we have no idea what is going on behind the scenes. Sometimes the mom herself is not even aware of the toll it takes, keeping it all together, walking that tightrope, striving for the perfect balance.
But here’s the thing about balance. It does not really exist. At least not in real life circumstances like these. Because balance by definition requires stillness. To be steady and equal and balanced is an impossible thing to do while in motion. (Except maybe for a professional ballet dancer.) My life is not like that. I am never still. I am never steady. I am inconsistent, dynamic, chaotic. I can only be as flexible as my children will allow me to be. So balance is not the thing to strive for, or at least not in the way we have been led to think. Or rather, I would say it is okay to be off balance more often than not. It is completely normal, natural and expected even. There is so much we cannot control.
Maybe the trick is to focus on what we can in fact control and harness that as a strength. For myself, it means letting go of a great deal of what I am prone to worrying about. But there is a kind of power in surrender. And I’d like to think it is keeping with the perspective that this frees up my energy for other areas of my life that need it more.
