The past few days have been a bit of a strain. Ruthie only wakes up once (around 2 AM) for her nightly feeding, and so logically (or so I tell myself), I should be on the gravy train. Yet in the back of my mind mumbles the suspicion that she's drinking more at each feeding, and therefore taking a lot more of my energy. The reason? I'm inexplicably hungry ALL THE TIME (I've already had three full meals today, as of 4 PM), and RIDICULOUSLY TIRED (though I'm getting fairly decent stretches of sleep at night).
My life seems to be an endless cycle of feeling tired, trying to rest, feeding myself and her, and squeezing in all the things I need to do into each day. I honestly don't know how mothers pile a full-time job on top of managing a household. I have enough trouble balancing my studio work on top of full-time motherhood and home economics; mothers who have to work outside the home in order to survive seem to be getting the short end of the stick, at least in my (limited experience) opinion.
And therein is the conundrum that will haunt me for the remainder of my existence: life balance.
In a panicked e-mail to a fellow girlfriends last Friday night, I recounted my giant to-do list and expressed frustration with the looming fact that I will never, NEVER complete everything. I simply have to prioritize each day, and let things fall as they will. "You learn to make peace with that, eventually," one of my mom friends replied to me. She's so right.
Learning to be at peace with that fact is a little easier than adapting to my many roles, however. When most of my day is spent changing diapers, calculating budgets, managing grocery lists, babbling incoherently at my now-5-month-old, and squeezing in some photography every now and then, it's hard to feel like a Professional Photographer. Somewhere in the back of my mind lay the assumption that a "mother" does not equal "professional," in spite of the fact that I've met plenty of wonderful mothers who conduct themselves professionally, and plenty of professionals who are also mothers. It also occurred to me that this is also true through all of human history.
It was a shock to me to discover that assumption lived in my brain, and I'm at a loss to explain where it came from. It's hard to think of myself as anything other than "just a mother," and it frustrates me to admit that. I know that I am so many other things, and that this one aspect of myself is only momentarily overwhelming and all-consuming. It will continue to be a blessing and a struggle all at once. I must not let myself diminish the significance of motherhood or my other activities by putting "just" in front of "mother". It does injustice to mothers and women everywhere.
I wrote in my journal the other day, "I guess I just have a hard time letting the cameras and the crib coexist." I suppose I'll get used to it. After all, my thousands of dollars of equipment do, in fact, sit right next to my most precious possession: my daughter.