Have y’all seen the little old lady in the buffet line? You know the one I mean. She drives you nuts, because she is so dadgum slow! While you stand there grumbling, she carefully fills her plate. She dawdles around while you fume. She takes a little bit of this, and a dab of that, and then some of that over there. She has to have a taste of everything. Well, just be nice to her!

That little old lady was me!

I want it all! And, that’s my problem. In my life, I fill my metaphorical plate so full that I can’t balance it.

I asked for help in finding life’s balance, proposing a group writing project, and hoped that some of you would write and give me inspiration. Evidently, the subject matter didn’t resonate with anyone except Marcia and Kate Lacy. But, I want to thank Amy Palko at Lives Less Ordinary and Jacob Share at Group Writing Projects for trying to get your attention.

It seems that there is no real answer to my questions about finding a balanced life. “Balance” seems to be a matter of perspective.

Kate dropped in and wrote a “post” in the comment section of my original post about the writing project. It’s worth skipping over there to read it. Evidently she doesn’t have a blog, but she should. At 63, Kate has experienced life, and has a lot to share. She claims that balance is a “choice,” and says:
“Imbalance is itself a gift - a moment of time moving so fast that we, as mere organisms, slow down. We are forced to take that extra breath, to endure infections that triumph over stress and fear and anger, to make hard decisions….because we are not immortals. Because tomorrows are limited and we are missing too many sunrises, too many grandchild kisses, too many inspirational scenes…”

Boy howdy, is she dead on with that?!

Marcia had an admittedly flippant answer to my questions about finding balance. She, too, believes that balance is a “choice.” She said, “You are already balanced, look at it as simply rearranging the weights one moment at a time. Make new choices - just for today, you can make different ones tomorrow and you will still live a balanced life.”

Ladies, I appreciate your insight, but it didn’t really help me solve my problem. Choice IS my problem!

I’m working hard at weighing all the choices I have made. I’m going to try to look at this “imbalance” in my life as a gift and slow down for awhile. I’m re-arranging my plate to remove some things for which I no longer have appetite. The doctor is going to do some re-arranging for me. She’s going to be making a few of my choices (and forcing some choices I don’t want). I’m going to feel like a little kid whose momma fills the plate for her. But, I’m ready to deal with it. My gentle rebellion has begun.

The first thing I’m going to do is avoid the buffet table!

The last many months for me has been nothing but go. . . go. . . GO! Every woman out there knows what I mean, and I believe that most men understand it, too. Some of us fill our lives so full that we barely get to enjoy the things we do. I’m one of those people.

Aside from duties as wife, homemaker, parent, and self-employed professional storyteller, I’m also a blogger, a “crafter,” and a self appointed “do-gooder.” I don’t know how that happened except that I just kept saying, “yes.” I got so disorganized, and my life got so unbalanced, that my body is currently teaching me how to say, “no.” I stressed myself to the max, exhaustion hit, and then I came down with a cold that I can’t shake. I have spent three days barely motivating from bed to couch and back again. My physical body reached its limit and has caused me to come to a screeching halt.

I’m not getting any work done, and of course I feel guilty about it.

I think part of my problem has been that I was brought up to fully embrace the demands that society puts on me. Momma didn’t mean to do it, but she taught me that if my house is dirty it is a reflection upon me as a homemaker…not on the other people sharing a house with me. When my Sweet Spousal Unit washes dishes for me, I am conditioned to take that as a silent rebuke of my homemaking skills (when that is not his intent at all!). I also, somehow, absorbed the idea that a woman must be out in the real world earning a wage. I feel guilty if I don’t bring home some bacon and then fry it when I get home! If there isn’t enough storytelling work, I fill my time with other projects that give me a sense of self-worth.

Our whole society has made some pretty impossible demands on women (and men, too). I’m conditioned to feel guilty and unworthy if I don’t meet those expectations of “Super Woman.” How about you?

I recently read an article by Martha Beck, who is an author and a life coach. In her article “In defense of an unbalanced life,” Beck postulates
“I can tell you with absolute assurance that it is impossible for women to achieve the kind of balance recommended by many well-meaning self-help counselors. I didn’t say such balance is difficult to attain. I didn’t say it’s rare. I said it’s ‘impossible.‘”

Beck likened our ridiculous guilt over not meeting society’s expectations to any individual feeling “guilty” for not preventing Hurricane Katrina. It’s not our fault that we can’t meet those expectations. It can’t be done. She suggests that we recognize that society places impossible demands upon us and join a “gentle rebellion” to create our own cultural paradigm, by seeking the balance within ourselves.

Is that possible?

How do we sift and sort through the ideas of our expectations to determine which are ours alone and which are taught us by our society? How do we create our own balance? Those are questions I will be pondering for myself over the next several weeks, as I try to re-claim my life from the hurricane that I have created.

Ms Beck said, “Women describe the moments when they really “got” that the expectations they’d been trying to fulfill were unfulfillable. They say this epiphany was terrible because it meant relinquishing the goal of total social acceptance. But it was also the beginning of freedom, of learning to seek guidance by turning inward to the heart, rather than outward to social prescriptions.”

I’ve “got” that it’s time to change my expectations of myself. Now, I’d love to hear your views on the subject. I propose something of a “group writing” project. I have no clue what to call the project; maybe just “Finding Balance.” If you’d like to write a post, do so by May 9th, and then come tell me. If you don’t have a blog, send me an e-mail and I’ll post what you have to say. I’ll combine the links to any posts.

I’d like to know how you define “balance.” Do you believe there is there such a thing, and how do you achieve it? Have you joined the “Gentle Rebellion” of which Beck speaks? Do you cling to the expectations that our society has upon you, or do you make up your own rules?

Maybe with your combined wisdom, I can figure out my dilemma!

[Find other Group Writing Projects]

I sat down to write this morning at about 9 am and just as I put a title on the page, I decided to check my statistics. I showed 365 unique visitors at that point for this morning. It seemed like an omen. Y’all hear that eerie music, or is it just me? That

I have a strange mood on today. Maybe it’s because the day is overcast. The clouds are hanging low after yesterday’s tornadoes. It feels oppressive.

Perhaps it’s because of that recent birthday (turning 54 made me realize I’m more than halfway done). Or finding out that my cholesterol is through the roof (which will definitely shorten that time)!

It could have been the theme of Scribbit’s recent Write Away contest: “The Next Twenty Years.” I had to realize that there may not be twenty years. I was going to write for it, but was overcome with the sadness of that thought. I’m not sure I want to live past a hundred, but I have a lot to do before I expire. Scribbit’s Write Away theme for April is “Going Home,” and it works on my mood, too. Dang. Maybe you can write for that one.

The mood could have been bought on by having lunch with my dear friend, Cathy, yesterday. We had a great time, but I left realizing how much I miss getting to see her regularly.

I know that the mourning dove who took up residence outside my window isn’t helping matters! Have you ever heard the lonesome cry of that bird? I don’t have to work up crocodile tears when I hear it. Click this link, if you don’t know the sound.

I had hoped to write a funny post for April Fool’s Day, but it’s not going there. I’m all caught up in memories. I’m thinking about friends, acquaintances, enemies…all the people who have touched my life. For me, it’s the people in my life that fulfill me.

How often do we tell them how we feel about them?

I visited Schmutzie yesterday and read a few of the posts that she has done in her “x 365″ series. She got me thinking about all this (dagnab it). Do you know about the”x365 project?” Here’s what the website says:

Dan Waber turned 40 on January 12th, 2006, and wanted to mark the occasion in some positive fashion. So he got this crazy idea (not an unusual event) to write 40 words (no more, no less) every day for a year, and each day he’d write about a different person (in no particular order) who touched his life. But not just anyone, it has to be someone he’s actually met in person, someone whose name he still remembers.

Wow. I started remembering people. I started a list. I decided that I need to chronicle the people who have touched me (for good or ill). The “recipe” for the posts are your age=your number of words. Hmmm. That gives me 54 words. Not much for a storyteller. I thought I should wait to begin it on an auspicious date, like New Year’s or my birthday. But, then I read Jamie’s post today at Duward Discussion and read that April 1st was once the new year. The stars are aligned it seems.

So, it begins. But not on this blog. I started a little Blogspot blog to house it. Blogger is stupid! You can read about that in this rant. My new WordPress blog is hereYou can read it, if you’d like, but I won’t be allowing comments. It’s really just for me.

It’s my way of making peace with my memories. I’ll say the things I wish I had said to people long gone from my life, and to people in it now.

So, I’m committing to posting 54 words a day for a year (which isn’t as easy as it sounds).

Talk about an “April Fool.”