When You Want to Run Away
This is the September edition of the print version of After the Bubbly, an award winning family humor column. If you’d like to see it in a local publication, let me know and I’ll do my best to get it there!
When I was a kid I never wanted to run away and join the circus. Now that I’m older, I get it. Although it’s not my dream to tame lions or become the bearded lady, I understand the lure of escaping to some exotic life where the tightrope you walk is literal as opposed to the figurative balancing act we do here in the world of diapers, homework, and ear infections.
My mother tells a story about her mother, who would tell her children that if they didn’t behave she would run off to Tucumcari, New Mexico and they’d never find her. To which my mother calmly responded that they most certainly would find her – in Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Mom shouted similar warnings to my brother and I as kids. She would run away and never return. We didn’t have reason to believe her empty threats, but then again, you never knew. Moms are crazy like that. Our mothers and grandmothers didn’t mess with balance – work-life or otherwise. They didn’t have spa days or antidepressants or Oprah. They just woke up in the morning and did what needed doing. And if they lost it once in a while, well, they were entitled.
Genetics notwithstanding, I have yet to issue such a circus-running-off sort of threat. I prefer short periods of actual escape to fantasies of long-term flight. Running off for weekend writing classes and conferences recharges my depleted mama batteries and gives me strength to face the days of infinite laundry and incessant requests for Nintendo DS cartridges. I schedule my respites months in advance and write them on the calendar – in pen. In Sharpie even.
My retreats may not be as exciting as swallowing swords, but for me, some quality time with a spiral notebook and a half decent pen is usually enough to return equilibrium. And if it’s not, I run off to yoga class, where we make like a tree and stand on one leg, or rest our thighs upon our biceps. That’s balance. These are the things that keep me from losing it.
So next time you’re tempted to run away and join the circus, remember that you can juggle fire in your own kitchen and rig up a tightrope in your backyard. Just make sure you wait until after you’ve finished all that other balancing – you know, the checkbook, the food groups, and the quality time spent with each child.
And if you hear of any writers’ meetings in Tucumcari, New Mexico, don’t come looking for me.
Lela Davidson is a Northwest Arkansas writer seeking to balance life, love, and laundry with a husband, two children, a dog, and an ever-changing number of fish. Read more at www.afterthebubbly.com.
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by Lela Davidson on September 15, 2009
in After The Bubbly in Print, Marriage, Rugrats, Tweens, & Other Offspring, motherhood
My mother did laundry for 9 people in an old wringer washing machine until I was 13 and could help out. Auto washer and dryer? Cry me a river baby. Take 45 seconds each morning and appreciate ONE thing you have-repeat at least 3 times through the day. See if your life don’t get more exciting!