Renee Emerson

things my mother tells me i don’t have time for:

blogging
marathons
volunteering
politics
voting
reading the newspaper
homeschooling
starting an etsy shop
having a website
being on pinterest
and facebook
and twitter
over-dramatic people
needy people
most people
cooking class
pottery class
(another) MFA
writing conferences
scholarly conferences
writing a poem a week
writing a poem each day for a month
book club
writing group
sewing
knitting
starting a literary magazine
starting a chapbook press
the atkins diet
the paleo diet
weight watchers
and getting into skinny jeans
home-improvement projects
downton abby

{ can i count this as a poem? …just kidding }

she has a point–not that i can’t do these things but that i might not be able to do them right now. i have a husband and a baby (babies soon!), work full-time, and there just isn’t much time for things beyond that. i have had trouble envying my idealized self and sometimes my past self. i can’t write a poem a week or even every other week like i did before i had zu, yet i have not really adjusted my expectations. so i failed at them which led to me feeling discouraged. in so many areas of life, i did a lot but not what i expected myself to do.

i’m starting to assess what is necessary and what i am merely requiring of myself. what matters most is that i care for my family–keep a comfortable home, food on the table, pour into my relationship with my husband and daughter, and with the Lord.

reading & writing is important, necessary, but i haven’t figured out yet how much time i can devote to it and how much i should. i am putting on pause pursuing some of these wild ideas, exciting new things. there is so much that i want to do but in this “season” of life we’re having babies like crazy, and my family takes All of me. and they deserve all of me. 

flowers from our garden, blooming in january. sometimes its better to wait for the right season.

 

thisquiethour

2 responses to “things my mother tells me i don’t have time for:”

  1. Molly

    I hate to disagree with anyone's mother, but hold the phone: you definitely have time for Downton Abbey!

    Now on to more difficult prioritizing… I'm going to invoke the old, but true, “you can have it all, but you can't have it all at the same time.” Having and raising babies is incredibly intense. There are whole years I don't remember :). But I wish I'd been gentler with myself back then… about just being, not so much doing; about letting myself off the hook for a whole bunch of things. All I'm saying is, as you weigh your priorities, I hope you'll be gentle with yourself and remember that the intensity shifts a bit when they're older, and there's more time for more things then. Take good care.

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  2. Renee

    lol i've been wantingto get into the show but i don't know if i have time to catch up when i already watch Doctor Who and Bunheads! is there time for Three shows?? but maybe i'll have some unexpected downtime and i can do a marathon catch-up =)

    thank you for the wise words–i'm trying hard to ease up on expectations but its hard to break a way of thinking i've had for so long

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