Habits. Good habits. Something I’ve always struggled to cultivate in myself, so how do I do that in my children? How do I impart the one thing that I, myself am still struggling to learn?
I just do it. Right? So simple. So easy. Wake up. Make your bed. Make your coffee, work out, read your Bible and eat a good breakfast. It all seems so easy to do, to a typical person. But to someone who can wake up feeling the tone of the day before her feet can even touch the floor. To someone who can feel the shift in the air of okay todays an anxiety day. I sense it. I feel it, deep in my bones. A day that will take all the energy I have to be mom and to be homeschool mom. There are soo many insta-fluencer moms out there today, so many giving their take on everything from motherhood, to cleaning products, curriculums to how to cultivate good habits.
There’s that word again, good habits. So does that mean because I roll out of bed, sleep still lumbering from my eyes as I make coffee, wondering why am I making coffee? I didn’t even like coffee four years ago, I wonder if I even like coffee now, but it’s what I do now. So we go with it right? But then I sit on the couch and I make the mistake of glancing at my phone. I respond to a text or two. I scroll through Instagram for a few. Oh look, my morning fitness group is up and at ‘em. I don’t have the energy today. More like the youngest crawled into bed with us again and I don’t want to get my clothes for fear of waking him when I know he needs all the sleep he can get. I’ll get to it later, I think. My mental to do list is draining but yet I’m sitting here scrolling. I remember, why am I wasting my time? Oh, hello Jesus, it’s your old friend, me. The anxiety is back and I know I have to ride the waves until life is peachy again right? But really, I just want to sit right here, cuddle with my babies and not let the world know I don’t really have it all together. So I pray father God, please be with me extra today. Please be with my children and help guide our hearts today. Amen.
Feeling better, I get up and think okay let’s get this day started but somehow the mornings gotten away from me and my brain that has been glued to my phone since 7am realizes this is the trap I fall into. Am I the only mom that struggles with this? Why does Becky have it all together? The picture perfect stories! Wait, why am I sharing all of these stories about my morning? I am barely functioning and keeping it together. Mom look, look, mom. In a minute honey. The minute has passed and what I was supposed to look at is gone. Oh hey, look mom fail again. No. No. I know I’m a good mom, I’m constantly correcting myself. Always pushing myself to be the better version. But those days, the days where the anxiety creeps in, depression. For whatever reason it does, there is no guidebook, no insta-fluencer putting on a shiny filter making it seem like it all makes sense in the end. Nope. There is just you, God and the tiny disciples you are raising. But by the Grace of God, we make it through the day and the house looks like a minefield went off. So you think do I cultivate those good habits and clean before I go to bed? No. You shut off the light and pray tomorrow is a better day.
Maybe it’s time for a mom-revolution. Not the one where we are all fighting to keep God in our kids lives. No the one where I, myself, there’s no need to include yourself in this if you don’t want to. Where I go back to a flip phone and don’t have a platform to share my thoughts on. The double edged sword that will be battled till the end of time.
Pilot Family Life 