Oof. I feel like there are oodles of life areas where it is hard, hard, hard to find balance.
But the first one that occurred to me is an area that has been a lifelong struggle for me.
I have a terrible time figuring out the balance between overlooking irritations/offenses and confronting them.
For most of my life, I have fallen out of the boat on the side of thinking everything falls into the “overlook it” bucket.
(“Hmm. This person ran right over me. No big deal. I’ll just keep laying here in case they want to put the car in reverse and run over me again.”)
So when I try to correct this error and actually speak up about things that are bothering me, I am extremely vulnerable to someone saying, “You’re being too picky. You’re unkind. You’re not showing grace.”
Like, it takes only a tiny dose of that for me to begin second-guessing whether or not I did the right thing by speaking up. And I immediately feel like I over-corrected, even if I just spoke up gently about one thing.
I don’t know if I will ever become extremely good at this in my lifetime, but all I can do is keep on trying to figure out the right balance.
(I know that those of you who err on the side of speaking up TOO much also struggle. But man, from where I sit, sometimes I am envious of people who are so able to speak their minds.)
The first thing that comes to my mind is getting stuff done around the house vs playing with my kids. They’re so little that, while they help some and two have chores, their help is minimal. Plenty of empty nesters are quick to tell moms in my stage to not worry so much about the mess and spend more time with the kids, but the laundry doesn’t wash and fold itself. Eventually we run out of clean cups. This struggle is felt the most when my non-napping child is home for a long time, like over summer break or a pandemic shutdown.
Yes to this. Although I find that my children–at least once they’re toddlers and older–are actually much more likely to play by themselves when I’m actually doing work. As soon as I try to sit down to read or something, though, I’m fair game. 🙂
I do greatly appreciate the fact that the ones that are home play really well together and can occupy themselves!
Your attempt to read is my attempt to exercise… As soon as an exercise video comes on my 2yo assumes that I want to pick her up and it’s all she can think about. I’ve given up on the thought of exercising at home.
It’s a really big area, but motherhood in general is all one big balancing act. Balancing the needs of all four children amongst each other, and versus my own (we all know who wins in that one . . .); the need to teach them personal responsibility and how to contribute versus wanting them to be as carefree as possible for as long as possible; wanting to hold them so close to me but knowing I need to let them go a little, too . . .
I feel like this is one place where the balance keeps changing and will for my entire life.
So interesting because I have problem of not being able to say something or confront the situation or let things go. Sometimes it’s best to say and do nothing and that is so hard for me. I’m in that situation right now. I felt so much better after talking with my friend and each day I’m letting it go more but it’s hard but I know the way to resolve the situation it to say nothing. The other person involved needs time. And sometimes no matter what you would say, it could make things worse. Which is hard for me because I like to fix things and have resolutions and have everyone happy!
I have a hard time balancing care for others and care for myself. My husband needs a lot of care and I have a full time job as an office manager. It feels like my whole day is spent doing for others, at full tilt, until I drop into bed, exhausted, but my self-care routine is “If I have time.” Yet I know that is foolish. I made a commitment this year to get more sleep – I’ve been running on six hours a night, which is way too little for me — but I need to work on other things, too, like exercise and quiet time.
Oh, Kristen, I am right there with you! One of the coping mechanisms that I learned as a child (that doesn’t serve me well now) was to not show when something bothered me. I was one of those kids that was teased often in elementary school and I found that if I didn’t let them know it bothered me, they would eventually move on. On some level that’s okay, but not when it’s happening often. I had bucked teeth so bad that I couldn’t close my mouth properly and had to have braces for 5 years to correct it and on top of that I have big eyes (cod fish is what they would call me).
As an adult, it’s still a struggle as to who I want to let into my “inner world”, who is safe, who I can be vulnerable with. One thing that I do know is I’m not alone in this and that brings me some comfort.
Well, overlooking offenses or staying quiet in the face of something annoying is not my problem. I am the exact opposite–I have a hard time letting anything go by me. I can pick a fight with myself! When I was younger I was also not beyond being physically confrontive, which can be pretty intimidating given that I am just over 6 feet tall and have had periods of being very overweight, too. One time I was at a campfire and this guy made some comment about my appearance and I told him my body was my business and then I pushed him backwards into the fire. He scrambled out with only a little burn on his butt. And even now I am not really sorry I did that, so perhaps I have not evolved that much after all; I console myself with the thought that I prevented him from saying something like that in the future to some poor girl would go home weeping in mortification instead of getting furious that yet one more man felt free to make unsolicited comments on a woman’s body. Maybe I just got too old to push people over, because when someone is mean I still get this little mental picture of pushing them down the stairs to punish them. This is REALLY triggered when I see meanness being directed at vulnerable people, like store clerks or intellectually impaired people…I asked my husband once why he was not afraid to marry me, since I can be pretty aggressive. He said it was because he’d never seen me initiate a verbal or physical altercation, only react when it involved someone vulnerable, which made me feel a bit better about sometimes being a jerk. Still, I wish I could let things slide by without feeling like I have to respond to every idiocy or idiot that life sends my way.
I have the opposite problem: I speak up too much. This is true when I feel like someone is being unfair or inaccurate or I have a strong opinion or politics…. I have to work on letting things go. As I have gotten older, I’ve gotten better about biting my tongue. Certain noises in particular really bother me (drinking, eating, slurping, yawning) and that is something I have to work on since I know those are just a normal part of life. I guess there’s a clinical word for a person who has issues with noises like me. But I know it’s not fun to live with someone when they make a big deal about everyday noises. I literally have to remind myself, “it’s ok, it’s just a noise, there’s no judgment one way or another, this too shall pass.” I hope one day this doesn’t bother me anymore.