A Jiggling Act

I used to (lovingly) tease an old co-worker of mine because she would constantly say jiggling act instead of juggling act.  She was not trying to make a statement but was just using the wrong context, but I wonder now if as you age a juggling act really becomes a jiggling act.

I think about my gym membership that sits idly by during these long summer months.  Ironic that as the days get longer, I seem to have less time to get things done.  The sunlight teases me, she tantalizes me to do more, and then she suddenly sets and I’m left riddled with anxiety and half finished projects and the clock creeps closer and then sometimes long past when I should have gone to bed.

The gym membership comes with the use of the outdoor pool.  Perfect.  Elise and I have gone a few times.  I realize once we get there it’s impossible for me to swim with a 15 month old.  We wade around in the baby pool.  We bounce around in the big pool.  I delight in Elise’s screams and shrieks and pure joy and sometimes remember to do some squats with her weight as resistance.  Most of the time, I forget or I remember and don’t want to.  I instead worry that I didn’t put sunblock on the tops of her feet, and stare at the sky and show her the birds and airplanes.  My exercise of late is carrying in all of the accoutrements in and out of the pool area from the parking lot.

I stopped playing tennis this summer.  Practice was time consuming, and the team I was on was playing several times a week.  I can’t play several times a week.  I’d rather be with my family.  I’d rather be focusing my efforts somewhere else, like these two nonprofits I’ve got going, or writing, or a few other projects I have in the hopper.  I’m learning that saying no is not a bad thing.  I can’t do it all.  I don’t want to do it all.

I can’t measure my successes against others.  As I pull on the bathing suit from last summer—the bathing suit I had to buy in a bigger size because I was three months postpartum and nursing—I realize how well it still fits me.  I try not to think about the pre-baby clothes that hang in my closet.  I try to make a conscious effort to focus on why that bathing suit still fits me.  It fits me because right now I’m making choices and most of the time I’m ok with those choices.  The juggling/jiggling act I have going on right now is ok.  Maybe at some point, when the sun sets and my projects dwindle and the piles around me subside, I’ll revisit this.  I’m not right now.  I’m comfortable for the most part because it’s my reality.

I like my reality.