I'm Done Using Motherhood as an Excuse

There are three things that are always on my goal list.

1. Wake up earlier

2. Journal every day

3. Do more creative writing

These are the three things that every year, without fail, I tell myself I’m going to do. When the kids were born waking up earlier became a way to survive, to wake up before them in order to get anything on my personal to do list done. 

I’ve always wanted to journal more because it’s something my grandmother did every day. She was writing one line a day before that was even a thing. I can distinctly remember large black binders filled with printed out paper filled with her daily thoughts and even what the weather was like.

And as long as I’ve known it, I’ve wanted to be a writer. I mean *technically* anyone who writes is a writer so I guess I can check that off but what I really mean is that I want to be an author. I want to create stories and build worlds and let other people get so caught up in them that they write their own fan fiction about my world and characters. 

Nearly half a year shy of 30, I can tell you that never once have I succeeded in checking these things off of a list. I’ll do them here and there or have a few good weeks where I’m rocking doing all of these things and then something happens that upends my routine. 

I am a creature of habit so finding ways to adapt when my routine is thrown off is a skill that I am still working on. But truly, when I became a mom I figured I could kiss these goals goodbye. 

As mothers we are programmed to give all of ourselves away for the sake of our children. It is seen as selfish to invest in yourself or arguably even to set your own goals. If I’m lucky, I get maybe 4 hours a day max that are truly devoted to myself. And that’s not including sleeping. But what I’ve come to realize, for myself at least, is that mother’s often bear the burden of motherhood as an excuse. You can accomplish your goals, you can be the person you want to be outside the scope of being a mother if you stop using motherhood as a crutch.

So I get up early. I wake up at 4:50am everyday to get 20 minutes of creative writing in before I have to start my work hours for the day. So check and check for waking up earlier and doing more creative writing.

I’ve only recently started to implement the “wake up earlier” part after really focusing in on making sure I was doing some amount of creative writing everyday. But I was trying to write during nap time when I had a big chunk of time to do so and most days I was finding that my energy levels just weren’t great by 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Now, aside from making coffee, creative writing is the first thing I do. I may not get a high word count in that 20 minutes but at least I can say I’m writing something.

Now we’ve got two of those things checked off the list (for now, I literally just started this routine two days ago as I’m writing this). And one day, after complaining in a group chat about how I can never seem to stick to a consistent journal routine I finally decided enough was enough. I finally added a dedicated journaling session into my daily schedule, right after the kids go down for their nap. I realized that waiting to journal right before bed or even first thing in the morning probably wasn’t going to be a realistic way for me to journal every day. I had tried those things before with little success. But adding journaling into the middle of my day gives me a way to decompress after the work day and after spending a morning working while simultaneously taking care of both kids. 

Motherhood hasn’t always been the excuse for why I can’t do things. To be honest, my mental state has a lot to do with the ebbs and flows of my desire to be this person and often times it appears as a manic sort of state that completely envelopes my life. But this time it feels different and I’m excited to grab this newness of creating and sticking to habits and see where it takes me.