The Benefit of Knowing Your Season
I have ever so slowly been making my way through an autobiography by Mem Fox, the acclaimed Australian children’s book author. You may remember Koala Lou, Possum Magic, or more recently Time for Bed. She has written an almost obscene amount of children’s books all, for the most part, with different illustrators hence why you may not know but probably own a few of her books. Her autobiography is titled Dear Mem Fox, I Have Read All Your Books Even the Pathetic Ones: And Other Incidents in the Life of a Children’s Book Author. It goes without saying she is hilarious and an excellent storyteller. But why pick up her book? Well someday I want to write books, maybe books for children, and it’s helpful to sit and listen to the ones who have tread the ground you wish to explore. That said, this book has taught me one thing. My current season of life is not a season for writing books. However it is a season I am in no hurry to rush.
Tis’ a season of car naps and snacks, delayed playdates and loud mornings. It is wild and delicious and exhausting but so fun.
Since having Hudson, it has been a battle of pride to sort out what “this” season of life should focus on. The glaring and obvious answer sits at the beginning of that sentence. I am a mother. That is the main priority, privilege and role I have been given at present. Before any discomfort really starts to settle, let me state, “YES. Women can be mothers and have careers and wear many hats.” In some cases, the best and/or only scenario is for a mother to have a career. That said, Lucas and I have made the hard decision to downsize life for a while so I can be home. We feel the effects of this choice daily in the advantages and sacrifices that arise. However, as I've said before, it is for a season.
For the sake of rhetoric, let’s agree on what a season is. I’m not referring to the four differing weather changes we experience throughout a year. A season in this sense is a distinct period in someone's life where there is a marked purpose: a person is in school studying for a degree, looking for work, pregnant, raising littles. etc. Or it could be a significant period of change/trauma: an individual grieving the passing of a loved one, fighting cancer, getting settled after a big move or returning home after serving overseas.
Our neighbors dogwood bloomed last week and I’ve been savoring the pink before they fade and fall.
At some point, there is a shift and one season folds into a new one. At times in the past I have missed the shift. I’ve become lost in transition, stuck on outcomes and found myself growing discontent, overwhelmed, unfit, you name it and I cannot see the forest through the trees. When we misinterpret the season of life we are in, it is easy to grow discontent with where we are. We set inappropriate expectations for ourselves, make poor comparisons with perceived peers, and/or miss the gifts and lessons of the season we presently are in. We get lost among the trees.
To see the forest, some self-inventory needs to be done. This is really where humans fail. (At least I want to believe I’m not alone in this.) But research has been conducted and has proven individuals, on the whole, believe they know themselves better than they actually do. We assume things about ourselves when we should actually consider our past actions and calculate the realistic outcome. For instance, my faith in evening Hayley is preposterous. Daytime Hayley believes post child-bedtime Hayley can run a 10k, write a book, wash the cars, change the oil and run five loads of laundry all while living off water and zero sNaCKs. We can dream dreams.
We both inflate our abilities and believe we are better than the average while also maintaining a consensus bias. Which is a fun little brain trick that leads us to believe our way of thinking in general aligns with most of society. We are walking hypocrites with large egos in essence. But the great news is, we are capable of growing in self-awareness. I am beginning to own nighttime Hayley can fold a load of laundry while watching a show, and that’s fine. We can learn our strengths and weaknesses and in the process set healthier expectations for ourselves. But what happens when we begin to set expectations for ourselves based on the performance of others we consider peers?
I got to attend a women’s retreat with my church two weekends ago… we got access to the lake and I was able to kayak with a friend.
I am deep in the homemaker/toddler-taming/threenager-rearing phase of life. My house is knee deep in sourdough starter, propagated plants, cat hair and single socks. My text or email response rate varies from two minutes to four months. And yet I yearn for an entrepreneurial career. I sit on Instagram and compare my life, my daily performance to strangers and their curated lives. I fail to see the paid team supporting the account, the years of experience that individual has invested or what kind of childcare the individual may have. How I perform and what I get done in a day should look different from those women. Also what I produce is not the goal, what matters is the person I am becoming along with the individuals I am stewarding towards adulthood.
Bringing it back to our friend Mem Fox, well into her teaching career as a professor, before she published her first children’s book, Fox and some friends started a writing group they cleverly dubbed “The Writing Group”. For sometime they met weekly, then monthly and when life became busier, annually. All of them were teachers of writing to some degree, married, were mothers and under forty - as she states “the common ground was vast”. They assigned themselves topics, would write, meet, eat and read. Their goal was to create and write but in the process, they gave one another fellowship, camaraderie, and support. They knew their season, they were women learning and maturing at home and in their careers. From there, they were able to share their experiences and glean from one another. There was no comparison, only writing and listening. But what would happen if they had a woman more established in her career join the group?
This is not to say we should avoid friendships with individuals our senior or more established in their career, on the contrary we need mentors in our circle. The error is to confuse a mentor with our peer, we set ourselves up for poor comparison. The danger is we can grow jealous, entitled, bitter and remove our eyes from our own allotted plate. At least this has been my experience and again I want to believe I am not alone in experiencing this. We all know the Theodore Roosevelt quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Knowing my season has helped me tend to my relationships with better discernment. It has also helped me to remain thankful for where I am, who I am with and what has been given to me. There are areas I want to reassess and continue to grow in but this brings me to my last point. If we are too busy pushing to the “next” season of life, we miss the lessons of the current one we are in.
Hudson gave me a plant for mother’s day he started from seed. He was pumped.
Physically, this is the messiest my life has been, little is curated and everything is lopsided. I can clearly see areas where I have grown and I can see other areas where I’m still struggling. I am at the assessment place of, “is this something to grow in during this season or will it be something God grows in another season?”. For example, I really want God to help me grow into a morning person. I want quiet coffee time, to have space to read and journal daily. I have slowly stopped the fifteen item to-do list before bed. However now I need the discipline to put the phone down and go to bed. God has been growing me slowly in discipline this past season. There have been little, daily structures I have maintained over time, which eventually have and will create new rhythms for my life. The building blocks are going into place, so maybe next year will be the year for early bedtimes.
The harsh reality to seasons, I am learning, is they are short for better or for worse. There is so much that can be distilled down even within the mundane periods of life. However the worst thing to do, is to avoid the present lessons being offered. To take our eyes away from our own story and begin to compare and wish away the place we are at. To take on other peoples stories and feel cheated or proud or ashamed of where we stand. We have one life, with many seasons, and it is all a gift.
In the end of the chapter Fox writes, “The Writing Group was invaluable to me as a woman, and salutary for me as a writer. I mourn its passing. When we’re all retired maybe we’ll meet again to write again, to read new pieces that begin ‘Being a grandmother…’” I think we will all be surprised how quickly we’ll be looking back, reminiscing on the seasons we lived. My greatest regret would be wishing the time away, overlooking the one’s who have been placed in my life, even for a season.
Not pictured: a Jack, an Ivan, and an Ole. (Side note, all living creatures at our residence are currently males which is why we will soon be getting hens… but that’s a post for another day.)
