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You know, one of the big prices you pay for becoming a
full-time working mother is that you end up being a general half-ass.
You half-ass your work so you can do the daily things like
make dental appointments, hair appointments, chiropractic appointments. So you
can be a friend, even if it’s lame via e-mail friendship.
And then, you half-ass your house maintenance, because you
want it to be clean, but you desperately need to spend more time with your
children. You spend time with those aforementioned children, all the while
thinking about the fifty other things you have to get done, and thus – you half-ass
your time with them.
You half-ass your relationship, and hope that it will
sustain itself based on the love you feel for each other, and the time you are
able to snatch away from other things.
You half-ass your personal maintenance, because boy – does it
really seem important to get to that thar dental appointment after a day where
the boss made your head explode, your children were grumpy/needy, you’ve cooked
a meal that’s been summarily rejected by all and sundry, and bedtime became an
epic struggle?
Not nearly half ass important as trying to find a way to get
up and make it through the next day.
Parenthood is not for the weak, but it’s not really for the
strong, either. If you have gone through your life with high expectations for
yourself, you’ll be the one in the Parental Yearbook as “Most likely to be
utterly crippled by becoming a half-asser.”
It takes a long time to accept the status. To be at peace
with the fact that half-ass is really your best shot at things, and putting all
your heart and soul into these things will still produce a middling result.
Me? Sometimes, if I accomplish that one extra task I have on
my plate, I can go to bed feeling like I gave maybe a three-quarter assed
attempt at the day. And I can be happy with that. Other days, it’s difficult to
recall having put any ass into any of it. Those days are the worst. It’s not
easy accepting failure into your definition of self. But finding new ways to
fail every day and accepting that fact – that, to me, is the mark of being a parent/partner/career-woman.
