Balance? Whatever

Okay, don't stop, don't think. Now open wide. Wider. Good job. Now chomp. That's it! Nicely done! Full? Of course. That's because you've just bitten off way more than you can possibly chew.
I am a master of this. I constantly walk around with way more on my plate than any person really ought to have. I'm a woman, after all, and isn't that what we're supposed to do? Practically all my friends are heaping their plates at the buffet of life too, and talking with their mouths full.
I really don't get it. I mean, I only have two part time jobs. One full time, if you count being a mom. I'm in rehearsal for two different plays. House is undergoing a major reno. Etc., etc. Okay, maybe I do get it.
But my life isn't like this all the time. I think things really started to simmer when my husband went away for 12 days in the middle of October. Now, I find it very interesting to note here that I took a solo holiday to England back in May. The second that it was decided I could go, he was on the phone to his parents, who live three hours away, and had their time booked. They came and stayed with him for seven of the 10 days I was gone. Meals cooked, laundry done, on-site babysitting when necessary. He wasn't even working at the time! I, unfortunately, don't have my parents to call on any longer, and got no support like that! Was it because I didn't ask for it? Or was it because it was just assumed I wouldn't need it, being female and all? Perhaps that's a subject best left to the parenting and women's magazines. I don't know, but I do find it mildly amusing. It was a crazy week, with a king's ransom spent on child care, wild hours, two sick girls, and not much sleep. It was the sleep thing that really did me in. My emotions went berserk. I was missing my man, dealing with all I had to deal with, not including the extras, and going on three or four hours a night. Yet there wasn't really anything that I could give up, let go, not do.
Of course, one could say that I could not be in the plays, that I should stay home and raise my children, make them the focus. But they are why I work in the first place-we just can't afford to have me at home all the time. And if I don't carve out something for me to do, just for me, then I get really grumpy and resentful. I love being on stage, it's part of me. I think my girls need to see Mummy doing something that she is passionate about; otherwise, how will they know it's okay to have passions?
This is perhaps where that lovely word “balance” comes into play. You see it everywhere, don't you? How to live with “balance”-every magazine and wellness program seems to be able to tell you how to accomplish this. Yet it was in one of these very magazines that I read actor Will Smith scoffing at the notion of leading a “balanced” life. He pointed out that the very word balance implies that everything is in equal parts, and therefore balance-able. Life just doesn't work like this. Sometimes work has to take up all you've got. Sometimes family has to take precedence, while all the other activities still orbit around the centre.
I have to agree with Mr. Smith. To say that life is a balancing act is not possible. A juggling act would be more apt. Knowing how many balls to have in the air at one time in order to maintain a sanity level is something that I am sure all of us are constantly working out. I happen to have a lot of balls in the air right now. I'm not even sure if it's too many, although I have a pretty good idea that they are, at this precise moment, a bit more than I can handle. This coming week should be, not to put too fine a point on it, horrible. One show opens (the Herongate Barn and Dinner Theatre's Christmas show, shameless self-promotion) this week. My husband's new restaurant is in the final prep stages before opening, and I'm helping out (more shameless self-promotion), and I'm editor of this week's edition of the Uxbridge Cosmos, which, if you're reading this, I must have gotten out on time. These, plus all the other things that make up my life, are
consuming me at the moment, and I'm not sure that I'm coping as well as I could. Hindsight is 20-20, as they say, because if I had known that I would be doing the paper the same week as the show opened, I never would have said yes. But I honour my commitments as best I can, and how to fit it all in – well, that's my problem, isn't it?
We'll just have to take it day by day, see how the week goes. Right at this moment, however, I am sitting, watching the sun rise on a lovely day, sipping a cup of tea, the smell of morning coffee wafting through the air. I'm going to play catch-up today, and I've had peaceful, wonderful start. I suppose that's the “balance”. Be busy, keep chomping, that's not a worry, but just remember to pause between mouthfuls.