Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Am I Accomplishing Anything?

The other day I was telling Matt about how I feel. Sometimes I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything. I know that's not true, but that's how I feel. Raising a baby is a huge accomplishment, but it doesn't feel like it day to day. It just feels like I'm doing a lot of laundry, feeding Parker, cleaning the house, holding Parker, making dinner, and playing with Parker.

Those are all great things to do, but I don't feel like I'm progressing as a person. So I start all these projects to compensate. I started a health blog that I haven't had time to update. I work on photoshop, trying to learn the best way to edit photos. I'm writing a short book about the way Matt and I met. I'm learning "flight of the bumblebee" on the piano and writing a song about Parker on the guitar. Plus I am training for a marathon. Well, I'm trying to do all of these things, but the thing is it is hard to accomplish anything when my longest stretch of uninterrupted time is about an hour. Sometimes just taking a shower is my greatest accomplishment of the day. So I've started all these projects, but most of them aren't going anywhere.

I thought I was weird to have these feelings, but I was visiting teaching yesterday and come to find out the other two women (who are stay at home moms) feel the exact same way. I felt relieved. I'm not a weirdo! Well, at least not that weird. They spoke about their many projects and how their husbands don't understand it. I used to feel bad about not living up to my expectations, but I'm seeing it differently now.

This trying to do a million things isn't working though. So, I'm going to try to focus just on one thing at a time and maybe, just maybe, I'll finish something I'm working on. And of course, I'm raising one cute little boy which will be my greatest accomplishment. Even though I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything by playing with him all day, I'm really teaching him about the world and about his mother's love for him.

4 comments:

Kelli said...

Remember the quote, "No success can compensate for failure in the home." It will be your greatest accomplishment!!

Although, I totally understand where you're coming from - especially since you are such a motivated person!! I've thought a lot about that with our baby coming in two months. I think that will be a hard thing to deal with.

You're amazing! You'll do (and are doing) amazing things with your life.

Keep it up!

torri said...

Thank you so much for posting this Ashley! This is exactly how I feel too! This was such a good reminder, and it helps to know that others new moms feel this way too.

RawRaw Rawlings Blog said...

I feel ya 100%! I get frustrated not having enough energy for the things I want to do because I spend it all elsewhere. Especially when it doesn't seem like the things I do like cleaning, cooking, and laundry make a difference because I just have to do them again and again One thing that helps is I remember when I was working at Zions is that I did the same things week to week for them. (Just when I would get my inbox cleaned out the next day it was just as full as before. Kinda like laundry I guess.) Yes there were variations because of different situations but essentially it was the same. So it helps to think that my old job outside the home was just as repetitive as my new job in the home but I didn't have a beautiful little girl to take care of. She makes it all worth it.

Hang in there! And if you ever need anything I'm not far.

RawRaw Rawlings Blog said...

The last comment says dizzler but it is I Rachelle.