Divided existence

I took Julie's advice and have started a lighter book.  (It has elicited some deep thinking, maybe I'm a hopeless case.)

From My Korean Deli:

"A double life.  A divided existence, schismatic even.  Let me give you a bit of advice about such endeavors: they are even trickier than they look.  You must be careful.  One half is always threatening to swallow the other, to consume it, to wipe it out.  Sometimes a double existence is more than impractical; it is fundamentally an impossible feat---a folly---and in the end you may have to give one side up."

This was something that the author's boss, George Plimpton, said to him when he heard the author was in the process of buying a deli with his wife and her family.  It reminded me of my decision to leave my job mid-school year, after Sag was born.

That decision, as unexpected, shocking and dramatic as it was, was actually not a difficult one.  I knew in my bones that I could not continue to be both mother and teacher at that juncture.  It had become, impossible.

What I have been struggling with much more (because there isn't a choice to be made?) is managing what does feel like the single-double-triple-exponential life of a full-time homeschooling homemaker.

There are perks to not being a professional.  To not working out-of-the-house.  I think of this often.

Perks or not, though, for me, it has never been simple.  Or easy.  Beyond the veil of the loss of a professional identity was a world of personality traits, chemical quirks and curveballs (both mental and physical) waiting to reveal themselves more clearly now that I had "more time".

The last decade has been post-career vs. family (or career and family), but I wasn't able to escape the Supermom mindset.  I thought, doubly, that she would be me.  (That thing, not ergo, of "more time".)

Instead, I was baffled.  And ashamed.  Everything excepting being a loving mother was so hard.  There was a lot to juggle and before long the challenges not met in these other departments: managing money, cleaning, having a clear head and heart, threatened my positive self-image as a mother and partner.

As I continue to try to improve myself in these various spheres, I read the excerpt above and thought, in a way, I am now attempting the double life of parenting and self-improvement.  But, I can easily expand the diagram...add homeschooling and it becomes a triple life.  "Self-improvement" splinters easily into numerous branches.

It's exponential.  And all connected.  But, not impossible.