Balancing Those Darn Hats

Gads, I haven't written in a while. And I did so well, too. I think I wrote everyday (nearly) for the past month and a half. I busted my record.

Rats.

Ah, but I've been busy. But you knew that was coming, didn't you. These past three days have been a blur. This is the first time I've been able to sit at my computer and actually breathe.
I've got a project nearing completion and information is coming at me like a ricochet of bullets. I finally submitted the site for a final approval, only to be bombarded with problems on another site. I'm in the middle of teaching myself a few new tricks, my writers' group is REALLY taking off and to top it off, I started a reading group. I know, I'm glutton for punishment.

Of course, there's the little matter of my family.

It's spring break here and the kids have been busy as well. Brandon's birthday is this week and he'll be ten. They had a party last night at a pizza joint and we all had fun. As an added bonus, he got to spend the night with his cousin, and the other cousin got to spend the night with us. The boys were great. Not a peep out of them the entire night. But being a mom, it's hard to totally relax when something breaks the routine. It's an instinct and I couldn't have slept if someone had killed me. :-)

I was like that when the boys were little, too. I just didn't sleep. I constantly got up to check on them. Were they still breathing? Were they warm enough? The little joys of being a mother.
I was so glad when they grew up and I didn't have to "mother" them anymore. I finally got some sleep. But I guess I was nervous about having someone over and I woke up at 3:30 this morning and just laid there. It was one of those middle-of-the-night jolts awake and I simply couldn't go back to sleep. I just couldn't stop thinking. It was if my subconscious had been pushed into fast forward and I couldn't control the images and thoughts that raced across my mind. I almost got up, but I was afraid of waking up the rest of the household, so I stayed put.

And stared at the ceiling.

I feel a lot like that woman up there - wearing several hats at once. I've gotten quite good at switching those hats at a moment's notice, too. When you're a wife, mother, friend, business associate, you have to learn to partition your thoughts in less than the time it takes you to blink. You simply have to. It's impossible to be the same person all day, everyday. Everyone has different personalities, like a chameleon adapting to it's environment.

Last night I was wife, mother, aunt, daughter, sister, and consultant. Wearing all of those hats can be exhausting but I love the challenge of being able to balance them.

Now, if I could only learn to be as perky as the woman in that picture.