What Are You Building? Creating Room for Art and Family

Today is my husband’s birthday, and it’s a special one (whose number must not be named). It has me thinking about what it means to reach the likely midpoint of your life.

So much of life is spent in transition and waiting. It feels like a static time, but really it’s a time of slow and gradual growth, even when it doesn’t feel like it. It’s a time of interruption and chaos that feels more like a holding pattern than a journey. But time marches on whether we want it to or not.

It doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything, especially when I fall into bed each night with a checklist of items undone and look around at a house that looks like a bomb went off. I know my husband feels the same. He spends his days creating computer code and solving digital problems. Sometimes I know it feels as routine to him as dishes and laundry do to me. He is getting better at what he does, but I know he can’t help but see a life that could be more. Where his work means something and he feels like his life has a measurable impact on the world.

The world speeds by as we are constantly reminded that our meager efforts are not enough for the definition of success in the creative world. We understand the writing life and the philosophy of sacrificing it all, we just can’t seem to dovetail it into a life of family. Because while the creatives in us know we should be laying it all down for our art, we brought three children into this world and they need even more than we have to offer.

I understand the importance of balancing sacrifice and self-care. I know why women especially are constantly being told that we shouldn’t let motherhood consume us. But the reality is that if there is a competition on a daily basis between parenthood and artisthood, the parenthood will win, at least for now.

Why? Because I am always building something. Even when I feel like I’m doing nothing, just barely getting through the day, I am laying a foundation for what our family will look like. This doesn’t mean I have to be perfect or that I need to measure up to some arbitrary standard. But it does mean I need to be aware, and ask myself what I want my life to look like.

I’m not talking about ideals and dreams, I’m speaking of realistic goals. I can wish for children who are neurologically different from my own. But that isn’t something I have any power over. But I can cultivate a better attitude towards their struggles, and prayerfully ask for guidance in my parenting of them.

I can find a corner in my life for my artistic expression and growth. I may not be able to give my creative side everything I have, but that doesn’t mean I have to sacrifice it entirely. Realistically I may not be able to get up at 5 AM and write before my day begins, at least not right now. But I can find a few minutes to squirrel away my ideas at the expense of other less meaningful activities.

I want to build a less harried life, a home my children will want to return to and a marriage that will last. Sometimes doing all of those thing will mean that my own personal goals will take a back seat, not forever, but perhaps for now. But even as I approach the midpoint, things are constantly changing. I need to be ready to pick up new tools and techniques as I go, and to change the plan when it becomes necessary. Because my life will look like no one else’s, and the sooner I learn that, the better I can focus on building my own.