Finding Balance :: My New Wheel of Roles & Responsibilities
I know I’m a good MOM, but am I a good ME? Is my new mom life in balance?
You know that feeling when you are being pulled in 1,000 different directions and there isn’t enough of you to go around? Of course you do. You are a Mom.
One afternoon, I was desperately trying to tidy up our kitchen before the babysitter arrived—I mean, does anyone want a childless twenty-something seeing what #momlife is really like?—thinking about all the other things I needed to being doing in the fifteen minutes before I left to do school pick-up. As I wiped crusty coffee droplets off the counter, I had an epiphany: I am overcommitted and something’s gotta give.
To put it bluntly, I do not feel like I am a good version of myself right now. I know I am a good mom—that is my number one priority right now and I sincerely feel like I’m doing a great job! A good wife? Ehhh. A good fundraising consultant? Ehhhhhhhhh. A good friend? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. And the list goes on. I do not make time for things I used to love and that used to keep me sane…Exercise? What is this exercise you speak of? Journaling? Maybe once a month. I do not make as much time for my housework as I would like. Please, please do not come over unannounced because I will be mortified for you to see my kitchen floors and the mountain of unfolded laundry. I do not make enough time for my husband. (See: We used to be cool.) I do not make enough time to do the quality work I used to do.
Or, maybe I should say, I do not have enough time for these things.
In nonprofit fundraising, there is a concept called The Wheel of Roles and Responsibilities. The idea is that your organization fits in one of pie wedges of a person’s identity, and in order to get them to donate or volunteer for your cause, you have to make sure they think your wedge is important enough to deserve their time and money. Everyone’s wheel is different. You might have five slices in your pie of equal size, while I might have seven differently sized pieces in mine.
When I left the hospital with a baby carefully strapped into the infant carrier in the backseat of my husband’s truck, I also left with a brand-new Wheel. And though the new Post-Mom Wheel is rolling, I’m not sure it is really in balance.
What would your Post-Mom Wheel look like if you drew it? How do you keep your roles and responsibilities in balance now that you are a Mom? Or, are you like me, rolling through this new world feeling a little off-kilter?
