So I've been thinking all week about the things I haven't been doing. I believe this to be a common problem among many women. I also believe there is a significant more amount of LDS women who get the feeling of incompetence. Alot of it is my own person problems of always feeling like I need to please every single person except myself which I get from my mom. whom I love dearly, but she definitely stresses the image of herself to others. My mom was an awesome mom who always had a clean house, dinner on the table, raised 5 children and educated us religously with lovely little FHE lessons that she handmade. She made all of our wedding dresses, baptism dresses, prom dresses. She made us all at least 8 amazingly time consuming quilts for our wedding and also made all/decorated all of our wedding cakes. But enough about my superman mom, I'm looking for some insight on my dilemma.
Each day of the week I go from 6 in the the morning till about 8-9 at night (yes I go to bed about 9:30 quite often...). there's not a whole lot of stopping in between that time. Between full-time teaching job, full-time mommy and wifey, grocery shopping, work meetings, dinner, commuting, squeezing a work-out in here and there, Wednesday night young women activities, prepping Sunday lessons..... I feel like I'm always going. Yet, at the end of the day I still have a feeling that I haven't done any good and I have feelings/thoughts that what I am doing is never enough. (notice i didn't include cleaning, laundry, or lawn mowing into my daily routine...thats because Danny does most of that, he is an awesome Mr. mom).
I have reflected on these thoughts and feelings for a long time. My poor husband has heard me whine about it an awful lot. He always tells me to go do something for me or to get out of the house. But the problem is that all I really want to do is be at home with my baby doll. But then on the weekends when I am home I hate that I have such a feeling of unproductiveness (is that a word?). But then at the same time because I'm going all week I really don't want to do anything or plan a big trip. I would love to be able to go out and go shopping but the buyers remorse I get when I buy things sure does take the fun out of shopping....plus the one thing I really need are jeans and I hate jean shopping. do you see the problem? I will never be pleased it feels like. So if you have any thoughts please share. I will continue to search for something to add some balance to my day/week/month :)
Maybe I just need to realize that I will never be able to live up to what my mind says I'm supposed to do. I will continue to have a list of things in the back of my mind of things I didn't do instead of all the things I do do. again, Why is it I can never be satisfied in my work? Well, this truely is more like what you would see in my personal journal entries so if you made it reading this far. great. please share your thoughts.
I have had this discussion with Enoch repeatedly. So, answer three questions.
ReplyDeleteIf you didn't have to think practically and you had no obligations, how would you spend your day?
What was the last thing you did that made you feel like Cathy - not mom, not wife, not Mrs. Kendall, not Sister Kendall - Cathy?
What does your patriarchal blessing say about who/what you can become in this life, and is what you are doing right now taking you there?
Please remember we live in a different world than the one we grew up in. I'll take happiness over meticulousness every single day of the week.
Cathy, I think that every woman has these same feelings and thoughts no matter what she is doing. It is something I believe we all do. We always feel like there is something more that we need to be doing or that we haven't done good enough and we compare ourselves to others as well. I do it all the time. But I am sure you are a beautiful mommy and teacher and church leader who is doing a great job. I really liked President uchtdorf's talk from the relief society meeting. "forget me not" I think you would like it to.
ReplyDeleteCathy, first of all can you believe I am reading your blog! It is so cute Ashlynn is a doll...
ReplyDeleteAnyway I am shaking my head reading this thinking to myself "how can she really feel like an incompetent person?" You are amazing and if there is one person that can balance all the different titles that one woman can be that is YOU! So I have a solution to your problem, you need to do one of two things, get yourself a large bag of Mambas and eat the whole thing, or come to St. George and have a chocolate fountain outing with your long time friend. You ROCK and you never cease to amaze me.