*Warning, long and rambly.
While visiting with a close friend last week I was asked the question, “So what is a day like for you?” She meant now that I’m a SAHM, now as opposed to what I’ve been up to for the last few years. It’s really only been since August that I’ve embraced the SAHM lifestyle, and who knows what kind of adjustments I’ll have to make when and IF I get into my Library Sciences program starting in July…but her question combined with another conversation we’ve had on and off for years made me think again about a little concept called a “people-centered life.”
For much of my life I was ME-centered. I went to high school, I chose the college I wanted to attend, I worked through my classes, worked my jobs, spent MY money (I was highly amused the other day when I opened a journal to find a track record of expenses for the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college. It should be illegal to spend so much money on nothing, although I wrote it all down dutifully. I especially loved the entry for “cute spring skirt to wear to the city, practical but feminine.” I must have taken accounting classes with Martha Stuart), and hung out with MY friends, largely planning for MY life. Reflecting on this time, I think I really did learn a lot from being in school, and developed a little bit of independence, but mostly I just learned to cater to myself. I am somewhat embarrassed when I think about the way I occasionally mistreated friends or family, often putting myself first in any considerations I was making at the time.
This all changed when I went to England where I worked as a missionary for 19 months. For anyone who doesn’t know about the LDS mission lifestyle (I know, sorry, two links in one day, forgive me…but the ideas must come out) it doesn’t stop. If you’re doing it right, you spend all of your waking hours planning and studying and then teaching and serving people in your immediate area. The service can take any shape it needs to. People often invited us into their homes to teach them about the Gospel. We taught ESL classes, we worked shelters and food kitchens, and we often identified and organized relief for hungry families we met in the areas we lived in. Every once in awhile we organized events through the local congregations just for fun. All in all, it seemed that our main job was helping people find peace in their lives. It was busy, it was wonderful, and had nothing to do with ANYTHING I wanted to do. At all. I got so used to it, though, that when I returned home a year and a half later, I had no idea what to do with myself. It’s like I yoyoed from one extreme to the other and didn’t know where to land.
Enter the people-centered life. In Scranton one of my friends was VERY people centered. While I was the “planner,” make a plan and get it done, she was the people person. Her plans often revolved around the people around her, for good or bad. I was sometimes intolerant of the way this affected my scheduling, and didn’t understand how she could stop to talk/help/encourage/listen to anyone and everyone we came across- especially people she didn’t even know. In England I learned (WAS FORCED) to let go of that a little bit. Yes, we had a schedule. But the things we were planning were for the people, so if I pulled off some activity or lesson or event, but didn’t talk to anyone while we were there, didn’t look anyone in the eyes, it was all a loss. I learned balance. I also learned to be a lot more go-with-the-flow about life in general. I could just pick up in the morning and see where the day took me. I didn’t measure success by a checklist of accomplishments to be made up in the morning and crossed off at night, but rather by the opportunities I took during the day.
That was a good life.
Yes, we still planned, as much as we could, but at the end of the day when we looked back and saw that we took every opportunity to listen to someone, spend a little extra time with someone else, or just followed the day where it seemed to be taking us, we were successful. I wish I had learned that lesson before Scranton, but alas. Life goes on.
When I came home I wanted to work this more “relaxed” Erin into my REAL life, and although I did to some extent, the stresses of concentrating on school and work toughened me up again, and I started to plan again. I don’t think that’s bad, per say, except when I was unable to get things done in the way I envisioned, and then became surly and grumpy and overall…not fun to be around. This continued until I got married, the small laid back part of me battling the uptight part of me, and it wasn’t a bad life. Not at all. Then came mommyhood. I don’t know if this is true of everyone, but I’m finding more and more, that the harder I grip onto “uptight Mommy” behaviors, the harder everything is, the more I find a balance with my laid-back-mommy-self..the happier we all are. And this brings us to my point, finally.
I am convinced that the happiest sort of life is a people-centered life. I think it would have done me a world of good to find more ways to reach out while I was in college. Although my mission shocked me into realizing just how self-absorbed I had been, in a lot of ways, the damage had already been done. I always worked hard at school, but even on top of that I had SO MUCH TIME that I could have used to serve others, help people in some way. I went to a Jesuit University, for goodness sake. There were opportunities to serve people EVERY DAY. I occasionally took advantage of some of them (to fulfill required service hours, to be sure) and I love the memories that I have of volunteering at the hospital and running retreats. But even with the small amount of good I DID find time to do, I HAD SO MUCH TIME PEOPLE. And with that time I chose to cater to myself in a way that was not always productive, and honestly, was sometimes downright destructive. All that said, I don’t kick myself too much now. What’s done is done, and I didn’t do too badly. I made amazing friends, I got good grades, I acted like an 18, 19, 20 year old off on her own for the first time. I came around. And MOSTLY, mostly I saw the difference in myself when I chose to look at the people around me and see what I could do to help.
My life now is not like it was in Scranton. It’s not like it was while I was on my mission. I don’t have the freedom to go and focus on the random people I might meet in the same ways anymore, but I can still lead a people-centered life. In my opinion, I have been given a few gifts.
I have been given a loving family. A husband, a baby boy, and my own Mom and Dad and Brother. (That’s not even mentioning my extended family, as well as my family-in-law, all of whom add a richness and an element to life that I would be less blessed without.)
I have been enabled to stay at home. John works a job so that I can stay at home with our son. It’s as simple as that, and although he doesn’t get a lot of fulfillment from his day to day activities lately, I truly hope he recognizes what a gift he has given to me and Camper by being willing to take that burden, although annoying right now. (The good news is that he does start school again this summer, which ALWAYS infuses a little more purpose into our lives! Bigger and better things as the economy perks up and as we specialize what we want to do, a bit.)
Good friends. People who come and see me, ask how I am, extend their support when my life is new and hard and crazy and things change faster than I can keep up with them.
Solid faith. Although it is sometimes extremely challenging to put the effort in that I need to, I know that my faith rests on something real. And that makes up for everything else.
So back to the beginning. What does my day look like?
I wake up, I try to teach my son to eat and sleep and play. I make sure he feels loved and secure, and mix in enough “independent” time for him to grow and so that I can do the domestic thing. Cook, clean, organize, etc. And then I try to focus on people. My son gets in line first, mostly because he’s the loudest when ignored…but I also try and make life a little easier or better for others when I can. I’m enjoying listening to my mom’s plans and projects, seeing her do her thing, and the company is fun for both of us. (She’s way craftier than me.) I like making dinner/lunch for my husband, trying in some small way to remind him that even though his job is not “fun,” that I am grateful for his willingness to do it so that I can be at home with Camper. Occasionally I cook for the whole family, and that’s probably about as much attention as anyone gets from me these days. But it’s something, right? Lately I’ve had more time for friends who visit, to make plans to get my butt in the car and go see people who mean something to me. It’s largely people-centered, and although it may not be people that I don’t know, it is still worth something, I think.
I read a post awhile ago where the blogger referred to this type of day as “motherwork,” and I loved it. Motherwork isn’t always something you can list out and get done, although sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s entire days spent singing to a baby who has growing pains, or running around doing errands, or just going for a walk and trying to take some pictures and write some things down so that we can remember this phase of our lives later. It involves the cleaning and the cooking and the shopping, the bill paying and the doctor’s appointments and the organizing, but it also involves the people. Looking around and seeing who needs what and trying to respond. I still miss a lot, and I have to remind myself to look sometimes, but I think that’s what my job is right now. I want to try and really dedicate myself to this idea, the idea that while I am able to be at home with my son and any other children that may come along, that my blessing and my opportunity is to just be there. If I can be there for the people I love, and maybe a few people who I don’t even know as they cycle in and out of my life, if I can take those opportunities to pay attention to the people in my life and their needs over mine, I think life will be richer.
Yes, school will start again. Yes, work will start again. Yes, things need to be done. But as for what I do every day…I’d like to focus on taking care of people. Maybe as I work through this idea I’ll post more specifically how this little focus shift experiment is going, but we’ll see.
(Disclaimer: I would need to write another long post to explain how other people take care of ME every day, so don’t think this is in any way one-sided people. But what comes around goes around, right?)
