“All my possessions for a moment of time”

Pre-planning starts on Tuesday and school starts August 2nd and there is so much that needs to be done.  I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed at everything right now.  Life just feels like disorganized chaos instead of organized chaos. 

Bummer.

Yes, you read that correctly.  I go back to work next week.  My summer is over.  Despite the fact that summer isn’t technically over for two more months.

Double bummer.

I feel like I’ve gotten into a groove and I’m feeling the coming upheaval and my soul is rebelling against it.

I need more time.

I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I would ever want to or could be a stay-at-home-mom and I still don’t really know if I could do it.  I think I’d get a little (more) crazy.  We would certainly give up ALL of our possessions if I were to stay home (and I do mean ALL). 

But right now, as I’m looking at going back to work next week, my heart just wants to stay with Joshua.  I don’t want to miss anything.  I want to see it all.

He has changed so much in just the six weeks we’ve been home together.  He’s grown more independent and rambunctious and loving.  He doesn’t even look like the same child he was at the beginning of summer.

And I’ve changed, too.

I’ve become slightly less neurotic. More comfortable with my role as his mother.  I feel wiser somehow.  Older. But in a good way.

And now?

Now it all changes again.

Now I’m back to balancing how to be Joshua’s mother and making sure his needs are met with the demands of 100 students and their needs.  Not to mention being a wife, a daughter, and a friend.

At this time last year, I was a little excited to return to work.  I missed my son when I wasn’t with him, but there was something refreshing about being out of the house every day. Something…normal.

Now I just can’t help but feel like I’m going to miss everything.

He is going to learn so much and change so much and I’m going to miss it.

This is when I need to become a superhero whose power is the ability to be in two places at once.

::sigh::

I know that not working is not an option for me.  And I’m okay with that.  Truly.  (Did you hear that, Dan??)

In reality, I love my job.  I love seeing the looks on students’ faces when they “get” it.  Or engaging in conversations with them that relate literature to life.  Or even just talking to them about what they’re doing.

I love my students.

But I love my son, too.

And that’s the eternal conflict working moms face, right?  Loving your job and your family and figuring out how to love them both simultaneously?

How to have your heart in one place while your head is in another?

I don’t have any answers and that sort of paralyzes me.

I just need more time.