Things I’m Not Good AT

My ideal family and home revolves around an ideal me. My children would come in my car after school and they would be calm because I would be calm. They would calmly tell me about their day. One person would talk at a time. There would be order. No one would trip over books strewn around on the floor as they jumped in the car.

Then they would come home, and I would have a nice snack laid out for them. They would put their bags in the spaces I have for them to keep them in and then they would eat their snack and do their homework. It would be orderly and calm. Because I would have set it up that way.

I would tuck them in at night into beds that are neatly made in the middle of tidy rooms. Because we would live in a tidy house managed by a tidy mother. They would all sleep in their own beds. No one would sleep in my bed or on my floor or in her sister’s bed. Because we would be normal people who do normal things.

It would be splendid. Really and truly splendid. And I would be a good mother. A really good mother.

The problem is that I am not good at these things. And by “these things” I mean pretty much everything that this world judges a mother and a human being on.

I try to be organized. Organization makes me feel calm and peaceful. It makes me feel in control. But when I see a stray sock somewhere that someone left out, I almost hear it screaming “failure” at me. And then I go in the kitchen and I’ll see that I forgot to wipe off the table after breakfast. Instead of just doing that one simple task, I will be overwhelmed by the word “failure” screeching through my head. And then I’ll go in the living room and realize that I forgot to change the baby’s diaper five minutes ago. You got it – “failure.”

None of these judgments will help me be productive or learn better skills or make a better life. They’ll leave me overwhelmed and spinning.

I’ll invite people over and instead of enjoying company, I’ll see the doorknobs that keep falling off of the doors and that I really don’t know how to make stay on. “Failure.” I’ll see the carpet that has been trampled on by many feet for six years and that as such isn’t as soft or pretty as it once was. “Failure.” I’ll see the laundry room piled up by the back door. “Failure.” I’ll see my couch that really needs to be replaced or the doorknobs my children pulled off of our entertainment center. “Failure” and “failure.”

Everywhere I look I see these things that I absolutely suck at, and I’ll hear the judgment of invisible other people screaming in my ear. I’ll pay way more attention to those invisible people than I do to the real actual people who live in our home and who love our home and who accept me. Who accept me and respect me and desire me even though for the life of me I cannot manage to teach them to be neat and orderly members of a household.

And the other part of me will try to be heard. The invisible angel that sits on the other side of my head and tries to whisper messages to counteract those negative ones will intercede.

She’ll tell me that I listen to my kids. That I apologize when I yell at them. That I try to help them express their feelings even when they hurt mine. That I spend time with them one on one. That I teach them to pray. That I try to guide them through rough patches. That I’m always around and do my very best to make myself emotionally available to them even though sometimes the sheer overwhelming nature of four very passionate little girls overwhelms me and causes me to temporarily protect myself.

And she’ll tell me that those are really good things, and I’ll know those are good things. And I know they are important things. And they are things my girls really need.

But they aren’t the things that people see.

And sometimes I wish people saw them.

And to be honest, I don’t know why I’m writing this. I just can’t help but think there are other people out there who feel they really aren’t that great at being normal human beings. But who also maybe think that being normal maybe isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

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