The Best Mother’s Day Gift We Can Give Ourselves
This post is a week late, but I wanted to wish a Happy Mother's Day to those that were celebrated. I know not everyone reading this post falls into the category of Mother, but please bear with me because I think this is important for everyone to hear. This was my first Mother's Day as a mom, and my husband made me feel very special and appreciated. My son gave us both the gift of sleeping in until 8 a.m. (a personal best) and showing us how he could roll over from back to front (up until now, he's only done it when we weren't looking). It was a wonderful day, and I am grateful that my family was whole for it, especially since we had that deployment scare a few weeks back.
Leading up to Mother's Day, I saw a lot of posts about women wanting breaks from their children for the day. If that is you, I hope you got the break you needed. You will find no shame here, and a holiday designed to celebrate you should be enjoyed exactly how you most want to. Throughout the day, I realized I didn't need the break that everyone was talking about.
I boiled this down to two reasons. First, we got lucky with an easy-going, happy baby. He certainly has his moments, but overall, he keeps things light and simple on a day-to-day basis. But the second reason is even more important: I have an equal partner in a spouse.
I have a husband I don't need to give instructions to, even if I am leaving to run an errand or go out of town for a few days. I have a husband that deeply loves our son and cares for his every need, whether that involves the fun of playtime or dealing with his, frankly lethal, dirty diapers. I have a husband who takes our son during his workday when I get overwhelmed. I have a husband who started working out first thing in the morning, even though he has always done it after work throughout our marriage because he wants to give me a break when he finishes his day. We should all have this.
I don't know what life looked like for you one Mother's Day, and I don't know what it looked like the day after when everything returned to normal. The seasons of deployment, TDYs and other separations are hard. The workload lands entirely on the spouse who remains at home, and rest can be hard to come by. But it should not be that way when our service members are home. We need equal partners, especially when it comes to chasing our dreams.
During the planning stages of our dreams, we have to make changes. If we have been lounging around the house all day, every day (I'm guessing this applies to very few people), then changing our schedule primarily affects us. But if we have been on call to care for everyone and everything, then the schedule changes will affect everyone and everything. If we enter the planning stage when we go into the execution stage, with the mindset that we can maintain the same level of activity that we were doing before while chasing our dream, then we are setting ourselves up for burnout.
And, if we become burnt out, the first thing to go will be our dreams. It is simplest to toss the thing that "messed" everything up, even though our dreams would change everyone's life for the better if we found the space to pursue them. While it is our responsibility to pursue and prioritize our dreams, we will need backup along the way, which should come from our family. This support can come from anywhere, and we will have outside help as well, but things are often simpler when we have the backing of our team on the home front. Our service members know this well because it is so much easier for them to deploy and focus on the mission at hand when they know we are managing things back home, all while encouraging them to follow their calling.
We deserve the same opportunity and support; we should start demanding it if we are not already receiving it. As we move past this Mother's Day, I don't want things to return to normal (unless normal is exactly what you want). I want us to commit to grow in our dreams. Whatever stage of dreaming we are in, whether it is the discovery, planning or execution phase, I want us to make a commitment to go further. For me, that looks like expanding my investment and increasing my effort and strategies for growing this blog. I don't know what it looks like for you, but I am confident that you know exactly what your next step should be.
I recognize that growing that commitment requires support. I know what that looks like in my house and I can share that with you, but the way my family chases dreams will not be a perfect fit for yours. Only you and your family can decide the best way to support one another in chasing dreams. Chasing dreams should be a family affair. It already is for our military members. They have the family's backing to move wherever, separate whenever and spend months apart to pursue something greater. The same should exist for us and our children.
This will be harder to work around whenever our spouses deploy, but I promise that there are solutions to every problem, and our dreams can be achieved regardless of what our stage of life looks like. I know it is easy to martyr yourself by taking on everything in the household because once our service member leaves, we will have to handle it all anyways. But we have to resist the urge to do that, and our spouses must not allow us to. Whenever I start to get in over my head with the stuff I am adding to my plate, my husband reminds me that even though I may have to do it all one day, I don't today. Remember, it's not "Monday" yet.
I'll talk more about building this support system throughout this week, but we must start at home. This Mother's Day, make sure that you have the deck stacked in your favor so that you have the support of your family whenever you enter the "stick to the plan" stage of chasing your dream. And, if the service member is the spouse reading this, then try to prioritize your spouse's dreams. We all deserve the chance to pursue what we are passionate about, and this is your opportunity to aid them on that journey. I promise we are all greater people when we are living our fullest lives. As someone who loves my husband very much, I want to do everything I can to help him chase his dream and I am grateful that he returns the favor daily.
And, while this post is more so for the moms reading the blog, I will run a similar one on Father's Day because we all deserve the room to chase our dreams (and eventually, I'll run one for the childless reader as well because children are not the only things that require planning around when we chase our dreams). Whatever stage we are at in dreaming, it is time to take the next step. Our gift to ourselves should be to prioritize and chase our dreams. And thankfully, that is a gift to our kids as well. Because a happy, inspired, fulfilled mother sets an incredible example for her children and continues to ensure the promise that if we commit to our dreams, they will commit to coming true.