a watched tank never fills
I told myself I don’t get to do any writing until I catch up on laundry and dishes, but I just have this thought that may be like medicine for someone somewhere. So just a quick one today.
We’re on the downslope now of the calving season. My husband’s family has raised cattle for generations, and while I grew up with horses, learning the ins and outs of how things are done at the farm for the cows has been so nourishing and expansive for me. A fresh and needed change of scene and use of muscles outside of the regular routine. It could be too that I’m coming up on 30, still mostly freshly into my new cycle of 7, but I feel so eager and hungry to learn and drink in everything around me.
Calving has meant that our kiddos have needed to step up in big ways with their responsibilities. It’s funny how they can grow so much in just a couple months. Coy’s on the verge of walking nowdays. The whole house has upshifted it seems. I’ve been spending a good bunch of time with Isaac’s grandma, talking story around the stock tanks, learning her ways and why’s of how things are done during baby season, and getting to hear the stories of Isaac’s family and, particularly her life, that I’ve been itchin to ask for so long. To say she is an incredible woman simply isn’t enough. The things she carries are worth more than her weight in gold. I’ve got so many birthy things I wanna share too, but that’ll have to be for another day.
Today as I’m fillin tanks and checkin on mommas and calves, I’m thinking about how I’ve been in this very in between place again. Not fully here, not fully there. It feels non-negotiable for me still to be with our kiddos, to be present with them, to make them good and intentional meals, and to hold the container for them that is their childhood.
It is just so fleeting.
And yet… for me too.
I’ve been feeling so called to DO the things that are “me” things. To join the workshops, offer my skills, and to step into this newness of ME that I am feeling. As I’ve slowly opened my door to do just this, and have gotten to sit with women and mommas and babies and hear their stories and bring to them what I can offer, it’s like I’ve gotten a taste of my next chapter and am eager, so eager, to dive right in. This part of myself that’s been simmering and rising over the past 11 1/2 years of spending the bulk of my time in the role of mother. That’s the thing with mothering, you know? Especially when we’re homeschooling and are based in-the-home majority of the time. If we take on other roles, “mother” doesn’t really get to take back burner, either. It’s just adding more to our plate.
So for the first time, I feel that my time for me things is also fleeting. Not only have the kids been growing, but all along I’ve been growing too and need to allow space to account for the parts of myself that have grown beyond my previous edges.
So maybe it’s not really the right analogy, but as I stand here watching the tank fill, thinking about how the tank fills so damn slow when we watch it, so too has been this waiting to allow for myself to do the things I’m needing to do in this life that I feel called to outside of mothering.
Anyway, to the mommas out there who get what I’m saying… Know you’re not alone.
The dishes and the laundry will always be there. But you’ve also got to do the things that feed your gifts and talents, that allow you to lean in deeper to your callings, that give opportunity for you to funnel your creative energy.
You are mother, and you are many things.
It’s okay to dance in and out of roles, to weave together the pieces of your self that rise and then rest. Welcome them when they come, blow them a kiss when they go.
But don’t try to don’t quiet them.
Like they say, “don’t die with your music still inside you.”
xo,
Gab