Smartmom feels like her life is spinning out of control. She’s vastly over-committed and finds that she has less and less time to do the things she really wants to do.
Many of her friends feel exactly the same way.
Mrs. Kravitz juggles a busy job as parent coordinator at a local elementary school with her involvement at Old First Reformed Church. On top of that, there’s her children’s complicated after-school schedule of piano lessons, tutoring, Brownie meetings, Irish step dancing classes, and play dates.
Add to that getting dinner on the table, cleaning the house, dealing with her son’s severe allergies and being a great friend to many people — her life is like a speeded up ride on the Cyclone.
Divorce Diva is breathless with all that she’s got going on. In addition to her daughter’s busy school and after-school schedule, Divorce Diva is a freelance magazine writer with a business to run, who is also in training to become a personal coach.
And if that wasn’t enough, she bought a toy poodle last week on a whim while shopping for a cockatiel to replace her dearly departed one. Birds are fairly easy, but this toy poodle is a handful, even though she only weighs a single pound.
The little poodle had a seizure last week, and Divorce Diva had to race to Animal Kind on Seventh Avenue.
The poodle recovered after spending the night hooked up to an IV, which was a good thing because it gave DD a chance to take a breath.
Then there’s Mrs. Cleavage, who’s a regular perpetual-motion machine. She’s single, unemployed, and can no longer afford to live in Park Slope, so she lives in East New York and subways with her son to PS 321 every morning. Then it’s off to the big city for a temp job and back again to the Slope to pick up her son after school.
In her copious amounts of free time, she sends out cover letters and resumes, looks for a new apartment, writes her blog, Mrs. Cleavage’s Diary, and attends to her own personal writing, for which she has won numerous awards.
It’s enough to make anyone want to take a nap.
So you see, Smartmom is in good company when she says that her life is out of control. Last week, over momtinis at Black Pearl, another busy friend suggested that Smartmom make a list of everything she’s doing.
It was an interesting exercise. After compiling the entire list, Smartmom understood why she feels like Sybil (it’s not the multiple personality disorder, but simply that she’s trying fit a whole lot of life into that small, overweight body of hers).
So what could be eliminated from the list? Not much it turns out:
• She must remain a good mother to Teen Spirit and the Oh So Feisty One and be there for them when they need her.
• She must remain a good wife and friend to Hepcat and give him the love and support he needs.
• She has to work to pay the bills, oversee the family’s finances, and take care of her home (at least, nominally).
• She has to be a good daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and member of her extended family.
• She has to honor her creative side and work on her novel, her column, her blog, which are all parts of her life that give her great satisfaction.
There are plenty of things that sound expendable, but on further review, aren’t:
• She wants to keep organizing Brooklyn Reading Works, a monthly reading series at the Old Stone House.
• She wants to stay involved with Blogfest, an annual gathering of bloggers.
• She really should keep participating in her weekly writer’s group.
• She really should keep co-editing Pandamonium, PS 321’s poetry magazine but she’s under doctor’s orders not to do it next year.
• And how could she bail on helping to organize Stoopendous, a celebration of the summer solstice in Park Slope on June 23?
• And she wants to keep doing her monthly work-shift at the Food Co-op.
Whoa. No wonder she’s has no time to meditate, to exercise, to read, to run in the Park, to have a mammogram, to catch a show at the Brooklyn Museum.
Buddha knows that Smartmom is spreading herself a bit too thin. And she’s learned the hard way that doing too much can really backfire.
She screws up; she forgets meetings; she hands in her Smartmom column late, and Dumb Editor gets mean [Dumb Editor note: “mean” is a subjective term].
She neglects her other responsibilities. She’s out of shape. She’s not taking good care of herself.
Yet she has no problem seeing when her friends take on too much or say “yes” when they should be saying “no.”
She told Divorce Diva that getting that little toy poodle might put her over the edge.
She warned Mrs. Kravitz that becoming a church elder might be pushing the envelope.
She counseled Diaper Diva that taking that freelance job with the looney-tunes producer might put her life into a tailspin (and give her less time with Ducky).
But you can’t keep a good woman down. They want to do what they want to do because they feel passionately about so many things — even if they wear themselves out in the process.
Smartmom tried to take her own advice. It is so obvious that she needs to prune the tree of her life and prioritize. But it’s not so obvious what should go.
Well, it’s a tough call. Saying no isn’t as easy as it sounds. Still, Smartmom may have to pass on quite a few of her activities or at least get a whole lot better at delegating. She’s already found someone to replace her on the poetry magazine (Buddah bless her) and a committee of bloggers (oy vey!) wants to take over Blogfest for next year.
Now all it will take for her to get something done will be to stop going out on Seventh Avenue, stop answering her Razr, stop hanging out in the lobby at PS 321 after dropoff, stop responding to e-mail.
Maybe next year.
