“The decisions / choices of life come one-by-one in the moment. Expectations forever push you to look ahead, mentally entrap you in the future. Like a chess player you’re always thinking 8 moves out…”
(Robert Taibbi L.C.S.W., Psychology Today – Link Here)
Big week for us Morrow girls! Kiki has no daycare, so I’m staying home with both of them every morning. While initially my instinct was to think ahead and emotionally prep myself for what might be the most challenging week of 2019 yet, I’m taking deep breathes and letting go of expectations. Good and bad.
It is no secret that motherhood hasn’t come easy to me. I went into it knowing it would be hard. I went into it knowing what kind of mother I would be and what kind of family we’d become. I went into it thinking we were fully prepared.. and then Kiki was born. Things were way harder than the “hard” I had imagined. Kiki needed a different kind of mom and we were definitely not prepared because we still needed to grow in areas we had never thought to challenge ourselves in.
As mom life started to unfold before my eyes, it was far from what I had expected and with each new challenge and unmet expectation I became more disillusioned and more frustrated with myself. Turns out postivity is hard to come by on low sleep. Often I'd question why couldn't I handle this new challenge? Maybe I wasn't meant to be a mom? In a desperate attempt to stop being disappointed, I went to the other extreme and started expecting the worse, so that if everything went well, then I might be pleasantly surprised. Neither strategy is healthy, neither allows me to live in the moment and fully enjoy the good times . Getting my hopes, expecting our experiences to go a certain way, people to react or respond the way I would can quickly, end in disappointment. On the other hand, always expecting the worst prevents me from fully enjoying the good times because I'm on the edge, waiting for the next bomb to drop.
At some point I got into the habit of using pics and videos to remind myself that even in the worst of moments, there were moments of light. That in the end it's all balancing out. But doing this made me realize that as the quote said, I tend to be either trapped in the future or reliving the past hoping to find the beautiful moments I missed or have forgotten. Coming to this realization is what has inspired me to finally take action this year. This isn’t to say I don’t have good memories or haven’t been happy. Of course I have thousands of those moments too :) I just want to learn to live in the present, enjoy those good moments right there and then more often. Mostly I want to do this because I've learned that everything is a phase with young kids. They go from one to the other sometimes from one bad one to a worse one then back to a good one. It's part of their development and in part I think it's what makes us grow and evolve to be better parents too. I don't want to live through the bad phases waiting for them to pass by, just "surviving" them, because if I’m too busy looking forward I might miss the little gems that foreshadow who my little people will be once they’re done getting through the storm.
Anyway I want to head into this week without expectations. Neither good nor bad. I want to live in the present, enjoying and taking every good moment with my two girls while also being there, open minded, supportive and with all my patience to help them through the tough ones. If and when the rough moments outnumber the bad ones, I want to be patient and forgiving with myself. If I don’t handle it the way I’d like, apologize, let it go, and start fresh. Perfection is not something I plan on preaching to my kids, so I can’t expect it from myself.
Are you guys good at living in the present and enjoying the moments when they’re happening? If so what are your techniques ? Tips? Advice? If not, wanna give this a shot with me? :)