Living Outside the Box

When I was working full time, I had a babysitter--or multiple babysitters--for any hours before 7pm that my kids weren't in school, and in the summer, every week required camp that spanned virtually the whole day.  Our weekly schedules were regulated by a note that started each week, and with few exceptions, if I was at work, I was working, and it was up to the babysitter to execute the details of the weekly schedule.  My work was a box I lived in for 10 hours or more each day, and home, which included all the kids' activities, was a separate box.  If transportation to activities couldn't be coordinated to work for all three kids, the activities couldn't happen.  They just didn't fit in the box.  And thus, all three kids took the same karate class, and all three kids had piano lessons at home.

Now that my work box is gone, it is as if the rules for what can be handled have changed.  I have no more hands than any babysitter we ever had, and no more ability to be in three places at once, yet now that the work box is gone, I seem to feel that what we do should no longer have to fit in a box.

Living "outside the box" means some good things--like summer weeks with no camp--just sleeping late and letting our days evolve.  But living outside the box also means that when we go to plan school year activities, nothing starts out being impossible.  I am here, and can give everybody everything, right?  I am Supermom, able to leap three kids to activities all over town, even out of town!

Okay, so first, I am NOT Supermom.  I have been going to the gym, and I certainly try hard, but I am no more able to get from 1st Avenue to 12th Avenue in 5 minutes than anyone else, and no more able to help my kids do three hours of homework in 2.

And what happens if I get work and the many-armed being that we have created outside the box just won't fit back inside the box?

It occurs to me that life, at least mine, is a series of choices about living inside or outside the box.  Do we reach for things that are hard but might be new and exciting, or do we go with the things that are familiar and easy?  And in a family with 5 sets of interests, what does one person's living outside the box mean for the others?

Like any good soap story, this one is ongoing, so--tune in tomorrow (or more likely, in a few weeks) to find out whether we're inside or outside.  And definitely tune in tomorrow (really tomorrow) for more "Not Washed Up Yet."