You read elaborate articles that advise you not to try being a Super-Mom.
You reflect for a moment:
"No, I am not trying to be one. I'm only trying to balance my life - my children, my husband, my parents, my parents-in-law, my maids, neighbours, friends, my children's friends, my husband's colleagues and friends, society, relatives, home - and my career, my aspirations and my hobbies. A lot of women do that, a lot of men do that, what's great in my doing it?
True, my hobbies and aspirations often take a back seat, I never get around to them.
True, I don't get to sit for a moment except when I'm having my meals, an hour or two past the normal time.
True, my sleep is erratic most nights because I seem to be doing some work in sleep too.
True,
every single day I find (if no one else points it out to me) that even after hours of toiling, there are a few important things still left to do.
I'm no Super-Mom, it's quite natural."
One day you feel sick, so darn sick that you can't even rise from bed. You are devastated: how can Life go on without you? Your world - your kids', your husband's, every others' that revolves around you - will collapse. You try to creep and crawl, to start doing at least the most essential chores, but you almost faint on the way. You give in and lie back, expecting the explosions to start any moment.
Instead, you notice that... the World - everyone's world - does go on. Someone or the other pitches in, grumbling or otherwise, smiling or otherwise, calm or otherwise, and Voilà! Results far from perfect, that on a normal day would make you frown, today extracts a sense of relief - because you don't even have the energy left in you to squeeze out a frown.
It's okay to let go once in a while, sickness or not, to leave tasks unfinished.
To enjoy a movie though that means dinner is going to be delayed by another hour.
To let the child watch TV for more than the allowed one hour.
To flop down with a book and let someone else run the house, for a change.
To do things haphazardly without worrying about military precision.
Sometimes it is only important that things get done, than
when they were done or
how.
Because the end... very often justifies the means.
