Did you know walking is actually controlled falling? We offset our balance on purpose so as to move forward. So why, oh why, do I keep talking to people on the search for more balance?
I never knew or cared to entertain the question of what did I want to be when I grew up?
It seemed like a stupid question.
I was eight or so when I first heard the term, Interior Designer, on a television commercial for a local community college. The title stood out to me among a long list of standard professions I might go to college for. Without knowing what an Interior Designer did I was called to the combination of terms.
Thirty-some years, several iterations of position titles, more degrees than I need, (I actually needed every one of them to land where I am today, they were milestones along a path I was following that was in tune with my Human Design) two children and a marriage renovation later, it seems that without meaning to I have become an Interior Designer after all…..although the industry would not recognize me as such.
The interior of my home leans towards the shabby of shabby chic and favors function over fashion most days. In motherhood I opt for laughter and intellectual stimulation over long showers. I’m a Taurus co-habitating with three other earth signs and while I do have a design eye for material and structural beauty, my attention always tends toward the deeper interiors of the human experience.
I have always loved finding ways to blend things that at first glance or instinct seem to contrast.
I believe people, partners and processes become more beautiful after transforming through adversity and the physical world around me reflects my appreciation for creative ensambles materially, in relationships, and in my career!
I believe strategic imbalance creates what most of us seek in “finding balance” and I’m committed to pairing the hard with the soft, the rugged with the plush and the velvet, the rustic with the chic, and the rigor with the love.
It’s why I pair lace with construction work boots and designer stilettos
with a drug store men’s undershirt.
It’s why I was determined on my wedding day to drink beer from the bottle - so the beer bottle could pair perfectly in photos with the feathers, tulle and ruffles.
It’s why long hours in my grad school library were followed with
a comparable indulgence of rebellion.
And it’s why I have been called since becoming a mother to make accessible and normalize the conversation for mothers that brings forth the messy with the beautiful, the ease available amid the chaos, the sense that “it’s all f’d” mingles seductively and reliably with the sense that “all is right in the world.”
And it’s my love for strategic dissonance that fuels my rage when I encounter spaces created for mothers touting the default assumption that one choice or lifestyle cancels out another.
I furrow my brow to these still widely accepted views the way I did the over-asked question of what did I want to believe when I grew up?
“Well yes, your ideal birth vision is lost, but….as long as the baby’s healthy”, “Oh your career growth...., that’s the sacrifice that comes with taking leave and becoming a mother.”
To me these messages support a belief where one desired outcome crowds out that of another with a smothering recognition and a punch line that reads more like a gut punch.
The message I favor for mothers is: Yes, there are trade-offs, and hand-offs, but motherhood is not an off ramp from your life into never never land. No it’s not.
My content reveals much about my own resistance around being and becoming a mother. Not because I didn’t want to become a mother, and not because I don’t absolutely love being a mother. But because I’m not the first mama who stepped up proudly to claim the role of Mother, and discovered the debut was akin to a bait-and-switch scheme, where my expectations for making a positive impact and to be fulfilled in mothering became pitted against some other parts of my life I was also fiercely committed to.
My personal work has been to excavate my own belief systems that support this set up and dissolve the assembly line patterns of society that create this all too common reality for powerful brilliant women everywhere!
If you resonate personally with my story, let's connect!