I don’t think I am alone in saying that there are some days when I just don’t want to do…anything. At all. A few days before my third baby was born, I felt this lack of motivation keenly. I decided that I was just not going to keep up with the house as usual because I was too much of everything: too tired, too big, too distracted, too excited.
I secretly reasoned that perhaps my husband would see just how much I do in a day if he saw what would happen if I…didn’t. I fed my two toddler sons, but didn’t clean up the kitchen. I let them heap all the pillows and cushions off the couches to build forts, but didn’t bother to set the living room to rights. They dumped out all the pieces of the train set and waded through them on the carpet when they were finished rather than putting them away.
By the afternoon, I was feeling rather overwhelmed with the disaster I had allowed to accumulate around me and decided to be productive by dressing the boys’ new bunkbeds with the brand-new sheets that had arrived that day. I briefly left kids in the kitchen, occupied at their craft table with their brand-new safety scissors while I collected the brightly colored sheets from the dryer.
“Come on up, Boys!” I called to them on my way up the stairs. The last thing I needed was paper confetti all over the floor to add to the mess and wanted to keep an eye on them. “Let’s make your beds!” The boys immediately abandoned their craft and raced past my lumbering trek to their bedroom. Once through the doorway, I tripped on their stuffed animals and dumped the fresh sheets on the upper bunk mattress. I started folding the myriad blankets strewn across the floor and played referee between the kids.
“Mo-om! He unplugged my nail gun!” the eldest accused.
“Plug your brother’s toy back in,” I commanded, exasperated. The miscreant folded his arms across his chest and refused to comply. I looked to the offended party. “You realize that there is no power cord, right? You can just keep pretending it is running. Or imagine up a new cord to plug back in to the wall.”
They were both shocked at my lack of understanding. The house phone began ringing as I was arguing with the kids over whether or not anyone was in need of a time out and decided to ignore it. I continued setting their room to rights and making up the beds. Putting sheets on a bunk bed is a gymnastic feat at the best of times, but when you’re 40 weeks pregnant, it’s a special kind of exercise in patience and endurance.
There was a knock at the door, and I looked at the boys, stricken. I was clearly not expecting anyone to visit. They boys flew to the front door in excitement, and I followed in trepidation. I opened the door to see one of my favorite people on the front step with her adorable school-aged twins. She had stopped by with a baby gift on the way home from picking the kids up from school and I realized in horror that (a) my sweet sons were still in their pajamas; (b) their faces were still sticky from the pancakes they had eaten for lunch, and (c) they had given each other haircuts with the safety scissors and the quarter-sized bald spots in the front of their scalps had given way to bits of hair stick to the syrup on their faces.
How on earth had I not noticed any of that?!
I ushered them into the house and miraculously assembled cheese sticks and grapes to offer as an after-school snack as Kimberly and I visited in the front room. The thing to note about Kimberly is that I hero-worshipped her from the minute I met her many years before: she is confident and beautiful with an eye for fashion and decorating. She is genuinely kind and overwhelmingly generous. Her house is never a disaster.
Our relationship began as I babysat her oldest daughter, and grew into a friendship as I reached adulthood; I desperately wanted her to think I was doing a good job as a mom. She took my crazy house in stride, and we had a nice visit within my chaos. But I never, ever forgot how sheepish I felt over my chosen laziness.
I have been considering that feeling of absolute lack of energy a lot lately as we stand at the precipice of a new year: I have zero interest in declaring a New Year’s Resolution for myself, and my social media newsfeed is filled with friends’ posts declaring the same lack of motivation. I have many goals on my list of “shoulds” but no desire to create a plan of action, let alone accomplish one! Instead of making the effort of deciding upon a resolution that we all know will likely be abandoned by March, I propose that we declare an intention of seeing the good things that really do happen, the little miracles that fill our days and offer sweetness and hope.
A lot of us are weary of the bad news that floods our televisions and devices. We are pandemic-weary and politically exhausted. We are bombarded with negativity at every turn. 2021 was not very kind to our little family, and while there was nothing truly catastrophic that happened, we did begin to look at the Book of Job as a tale of hope: my husband and I often joke that at least our misfortunes weren’t as bad as poor Job!
I recently began to place a gold foil star sticker on the calendar any time the thing I worried about and prayed over didn’t happen, and I began to notice that the calendar month was covered with good news: it became a visual reminder that God answers prayers, that life is good, and that things really aren’t as tough as they seem. My New Year’s Intention is to continue placing stickers on my calendar.
That day of mortification all those years ago was a great example of a “sticker day” because, while it felt like a disaster, the sweetness of a visit from a dear friend offered a respite from my own inaction and a renewal of spirit.
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