Sometimes the weight of getting everything right, or even mostly right, crushes me until I feel like I can’t move.
I can’t take another step because I don’t want to get it wrong, to break everything, to fail.
It’s the small relentless things that do it.
Trying to stay on top of the forms and notices, making sure we have the ingredients to actually make dinner, or clean school uniforms each morning.
These are not earth shattering things. If these things don’t get done life does not stop, the world doesn’t fall about… but sometimes it feels like it.
When these little things pile up I often feel like it is all so impossible. I can’t possibly manage to keep up with this stuff, I just can’t.
And yet I do.
Even when I want to go to bed and hide under the covers. Even when I want to just stay home forever and eat cornflakes straight from the box. Even then something makes me keep going.
It’s only recently that I’ve begin to think of that as courageous.
It doesn’t feel ‘courageous’ in the heroic sense of the word. In fact at first I laughed at the little voice in my head that said ‘be brave, keep going’. Surely there is nothing brave about facing the mundane. There is nothing brave about cooking dinner and folding laundry… and yet there is.
Keeping going, even when I don’t want to, is one of the most courageous things I have ever done.
What little things do you need to find courage for?
I’ve been thinking about the word ‘courage’ this week, especially as I listen to my yoga teacher during class and wanting to cultivate more compassion and courage, to be stronger and braver. Like you, I don’t mean the big stuff. I mean the little things. Responsibilities, my children growing up and needing me to change with them… they all require courage. x
Beautifully written..totally get what you are talking about, sometimes it feels like everyday I’m juggling balls and one day they are all going to fall down or I’m running a marathon and one of these days I’m going to run out of steam:)….never really thought about what we as mothers do every single day as courageous, but I think you’re right – it is courageous and sheer determination as well (we won’t be beaten :) ).
So so true. To keep going even when you’re scared and overwhelmed, that’s bravery. I found strength I didn’t know I had when I became a Mum. I often want to run for my doona and hide under the covers, but that’s just not an option.
Thanks. I had never thought of it like this. I like … It’s the courage to continue that counts … Will remember that.
I like that. The courage to keep going, face the day, face pile of washing that never seems to go away, or if it does, it’s only for a day before a new pile emerges…
All those little things do add up, the washing, the medical forms for school the health insurance that we really should reevaluate, the bills that need to be paid, clothes that need to be sorted and put away for the next kid or given away… and did I mention the washing?
Thanks for this post, it’s encouraging :)
The mundane is relentless and I think that it takes one kind of courage to be brave in an emergency and a different kind to be brave over a long period of time.
Yes, keep going when i don’t want to is courageous, thanks for telling me that :)