Have you ever been in the middle of a project, bath time or doing the dishes and thought to yourself, “When did my life become such a circus?” Because I have – several times.
Often times, I refer to parenthood as a circus.
In ring one of my circus, I juggle a full-time job in marketing, being a mother to a toddler, and being a good fiance. I put these in ring one because these are my favorite hats to wear. They give me my identity – hard-working, caring mother and a loving fiance. What more could a girl want? Although I do love being ALL of these things, sometimes the demand of being needed by several people simultaneously catches up to me. But I push through because I love my job and I love my people.
Ring number two is where my monkeys are, and they are swinging back and forth between wedding planning and running my side business. These monkeys are the ones putting in the mental overtime on second shift – working on planning and selling after my son’s 8 p.m. bedtime. These circus actors handle my personal business and run off of the small amount of my late afternoon coffee that is left in my system. AKA, they are running on fumes.
Ring three is that one has a clown on a unicycle and he is trying to balance me time, family time and hanging out with friends. This is the part of my circus that is overlooked more often than not. When you compare it to the actual circus, the last few acts of the evening happen about the time that people start to leave because their kids are tired or they want to beat traffic (and I can’t blame them). After juggling in ring one and swinging around ring two, my energy and stamina to maintain ring 3, unfortunately, is lacking.
But when the crowd stays, when the kids beg to watch those last couple of acts, that is when the real magic happens. When I take time to take care of myself, spend time with my friends and spend time with my family, it makes all of the exhaustion and time spent running my circus worth it!
As parents, we wear many hats, juggle many tasks and sometimes we feel as if the whole circus tent is on fire! Your circus may not look exactly like mine and that’s okay, but we all still have some sort of balance that we are trying to maintain. At times, it can get tiring or even overwhelming, so if you need help, ask for help. If you need quiet time, take it. If you need your own mom or dad, give them a call. No successful ringmaster can run a successful circus on their own.
