Hurry Up and Wait

It was a beautiful summer morning, unseasonably cool for August. We didn't have anything on the calendar so I decided to take my girls on a leisurely stroll to pick up a few items at the grocery store, then swing by the dry cleaner for my husband's dress shirts on our way home.

My one-year-old happily chattered in her stroller pointing out birds and squirrels, craning her head upward to smile at me when I pointed out the same to her. My two and four-year-olds merrily skipped along the sidewalk in front of us shouting “die creatures die” every time they stomped on an ant. It was the perfect morning – the kind of morning I dreamed about having when I dreamed about being a stay-at-home Mom.

But by the time we arrived back home I was more anxious than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. That little voice inside my head, you know the one – the one who tells you to do things, like pour bleach on your neighbor's stupid perfect flowers? (No? Just me? Nobody?) Well by the time we walked in our garage that little voice was screaming inside my head, “That took you over two hours. TWO. HOURS. Do you know how much more you could have accomplished today if you would have just driven?” I hurried the kids inside and dusted something.

Four years ago when I left my watch-me-as-I-juggle-a-hundred-and-two-things-at-once job, I was certain a switch would flip and my brain would immediately idle in vacation mode. Well, what I expected vacation mode to be like, anyway. I had never actually been able to let the stress of the real world melt away and fall into complete relaxation on any vacation ever. But I thought without a “real job” I would finally just learn how to chill out. No deadlines. No presentations. No egos. Just me and my adorable newborn baby girl doing newborn baby girl things.

But mental inertia is a real thing. It is impossible to go from 100 miles an hour to 0 miles per hour in an instant without somebody getting hurt. I anticipated an adjustment period, but on my first day as a stay-at-home mom I paced around the house like a caged lion. I must have checked my empty email inbox fifty times. My phone was eerily silent. No calls. No texts. By noon I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.

The feeling of needing to be doing something was almost overwhelming. Every day I woke up and expected the calm to just magically appear. That I would grow out of the constant, nagging paranoia of the weight of an invisible anvil hanging over my head.

Four years later and I still feel the urge to rush home from a walk. For what? So we can catch the end of Sesame Street? Because I don't want to be five minutes late for nap time?

In my job there are no promotions. No raises. No employee appreciation days. Yet I have a constant sense of evaluation, a need to be recognized and appreciated. To end the day feeling productive, successful, a sense of accomplishment. The way I met goals for twelve years was to finish projects quickly and efficiently. Watching my kids struggle with a puzzle makes my temples throb. I literally have to sit on my hands to keep from pushing them out of the way and finishing it as fast as I can.

Fortunately, my anxieties have not seemed to affect my children yet. I swear a potted plant could put on its coat and shoes faster than these kids. And don't even get me started on trying to get them out of the bathtub. No, the only person it seems to affect so far is me. At the end of the day I wonder why we couldn't stay at the park another half hour. How many times I checked my email because I was certain something urgent needed my attention. Why I was in too much of a rush to read one more story before we went to the mall to shop for nothing.

But I'm working on it. I spend a large part of my day trying to slow my mind. If our zoo time overlaps our grocery store time I assure myself it's okay for us to have oatmeal for dinner. Remind myself that if we spend an extra half hour at the pool I won't miss a deadline. There's not going to be a mountain of paperwork on my desk waiting for me when I get off the treadmill. Just kidding. I don't get on the treadmill.

And technology isn't doing me any favors either. Having a phone at my side that does everything short of rub my feet doesn't really help to alleviate the feeling of oh my god something important is happening while I'm pushing my kids on the swing and I'm missing it!.

Every day I remind myself that the important stuff I need to be doing is all around me. Making my kids laugh. Them making me laugh. Telling them I'm going into the shower to transform into a fairy but I'm really just eating a can of frosting.

Today, the only meeting I need to attend is the dance party happening right now in the play room. And I'm probably not even going to Tweet about it.