Being Myself

I think, in motherhood there is a delicate balance of being myself as a mum and being myself as an individual. We all see people on both extremes. Parents who deny themselves everything to the point of becoming empty vessels that have nothing to give to their family or parents that live out their dreams through their children and then have difficulty when they want to spread their wings. There is the other extreme of parents who seem to resent being parents and refuse to adapt and change at all. Their children spend most of their childhood in daycare centers and schools. What about the happy balance. I think we must all teeter in one of these directions. I tend to teeter in the empty vessel department. Allowing myself to get completely drained of life. One of the most difficult areas of my life I have had to alter is my art. I have always struggled with giving myself permission to be an artist and about the same time I realized the connection with my art and my spirituality (you mean God actually likes artists? You mean he is one?) I was well into motherhood years. This has taken me on a different route than I would have expected. Allowing myself to be an artist has helped me bring this into my motherhood and learning from the children about beauty and art has given me more depth in my approach. But I still need to let the artist part of me grow outside of my motherhood as well. As I don't think our lives are as segregated as we may like to think. I think this is good for my kids and my husband. My kids get to see a mum who expresses herself and gets gitty in creating something beautiful (or more times than not, just creating something bizarre) and my husband seems to enjoy my individuality of expression, independence and creativity. Right now, he is going to pick up an old, unloved, broken, antique chair that he won at auction for me, so I can do something "bizarre" with it.

Comments

[heather miller]

Its so interesting that when I read your posts, its on a subject that is close to something I either struggle with and/or can relate to very well, and is something that has crossed my thoughts or conversations. For the past year or so, I've struggled with how and when to express my creative side, and here recently, I've just come pretty close to try to ignore it, just because at times there just isn't time for it, and if there is time, its not a good time where I don't feel selfish for taking advantage of it. I'm actually hoping here soon, Scotty and I can both have 'our time' at least once a week, or something, where we would have alone time to do those things that we enjoy. Thanks for the reminder, it helped me realize that my once a week goal is definitely worht pursuing. Much love to you and your fam.

[Debbie]

Heather, Thank you so much for your encouragement. Maybe we are sisters connected in the soul. Good on ya going for one day a week. Andrew seems to get his days connected to his trips. I get one day a week now that I do a swap with a local dad. I have his 2 boys today and he takes Tamara on Tuesday. I get the whole schoolday free. If I need more time and Andrew is around he fills in the after school time too. At first it was a bit of a shock to the system. I would seemingly "waste" the time by just sitting in silence doing absolutely nothing but thinking long, unbroken thoughts. Lately I have been spending the time doing family tree research for Andrew's family (who are from Orkney). I spend the day with these totally cool older people. I have also started taking creative textile courses. A few months back I mentioned to my teacher that it was a shame there was no one day a week program. She talked to the head lady and now I will be starting a one day a week creative textile course in August. When I get involved in creating art I dont need to eat, sleep, nothing else exists. This doesn't work well with being a mum so I limit it to being extreme like that just the one day a week if I need. I know artists that are extreme like that every day and alot of times they tend to be quite sickly. My family keeps me in balance.

[Brenda]

I love your wool piece in the photo! I hook rugs and do some wool dying for that, The wool just glows with color!

[cheryl]

I'm so glad to find other mums working their way through this.

In college I studied fine art, but always felt somewhat guilty about it as it seemed a selfish endeavor (because I enjoyed it so much) and thought God felt the same. This is warped thinking of course. What I've found, particularly as a mother, is that creativity is a huge part of life and (ideally) is actually a part of motherhood.

There was a time when I was homeschooling my kids every day when I tried to get them to do crafts. This sort of flopped. But when I took materials out on the kitchen table and did my own thing, the children were curious and would come and create a bit or a lot with me. They were free to come and go. There was no pressure.

And I just wanted to encourage our friend Heather- your time is coming, just around the corner. :)

Take Care.

[Kathryn]

Debbie..your self shines through in all its creative beauty. With ref to your previous post, clearly you are still flying and it is a joy to see, even on a temperamental computer in an untidy curate's study in Cheltenham :-)
Thank you for being real with us.