The Exercise and a New Motto

We ran out of gas, folks. We simply ran. out. of. gas.

I'd like to blame Seth for this one. When I think back to how we got ourselves into this mess, my brain likes to immediately find someone else to blame. Someone else to pinpoint. Someone else to pay for the damages. But really, when you're married, you become one flesh (Genesis 2:24), so even if the blame could be directed solely at Seth, that's like pointing my own finger back at myself. And that's never a good look. 

Here's the backstory (and why I'd like to let Seth take the fall for the mess we found ourselves in): Seth has had a motto. It's something like "If you can, you do." This applied to everything--events, serving others, paying, going, doing, being, etc. If we were invited to something and nothing currently occupied that spot on the calendar, we went. It didn't matter if there were things directly before and directly after, we went. If someone needed something from us, we gave it. If someone needed us to serve in some way, we served.

This is a great motto. And it worked for several years. We were never those people who held out for the best offer. You know who I'm talking about. Those people that RSVP "maybe" or "I don't know yet" and wait until the last minute to decide, not wanting to limit their options to one thing whilst another (potentially "better") option might be coming along. We weren't like that. We took the first thing that came along. We weren't flakey. We didn't ditch people/events/things because we got a better offer from someone/something else. We filled up fast and to the brim.

And then we had Austin. And we found that just because a spot was open on the calendar didn't mean it was in our best interest to attend something/do something/etc during that spot. Especially during his naps. I was a nazi about Austin's sleep, knowing that his best growth--physical and mental occurs during his sleep and that I'd pay a price (in terms of his poor behavior) if he didn't get the rest he needed. So at this point, the motto became something like "If we can and-it's-not-during-Austin's-nap, we will."

This served us fine for the last couple of years. And then we had Graham. There's something about having a second kid that we weren't prepared for. I was prepared for the added expense, the being outnumbered (when I'm "at work" all day during the week), having to divide and conquer when Seth was home, etc. Like, I was expecting to have to dress two kids (instead of just one), get two kids in the car (instead of just one), and haul two kids around at wherever we were going (instead of just one). 

What I wasn't prepared for was The Extra associated with having a second child. I hadn't thought about the extra mental space as well as the extra calendar commitments the second kid would require in the form of a second church bag that needs to be ready every Sunday, the extra doctor appointments (which during the first year are: 1 week, 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months--not including any times that he's sick which has happened twice in 5 month life thus far), the extra picture appointments (3, 6, 9, 12 months), the extra planning required of two (coordinating) Easter outfits/Mother's Day outfits/Bluebonnets pictures outfits/you get the idea. It's a lot of brain capacity!

In Graham's short life (really, before even Christmas), we found ourselves swamped with commitments, maxed out in terms of mental space, and severely lacking in sleep. (Graham spits up MUCH less than Austin, but he's proven to not be so quick with catching onto his nights as Austin was.) So we hosted Austin's 2nd Birthday Party like we planned (when Graham was a week old). We hosted a Welcome Baby Graham party (when Graham was 6 weeks old). We hosted Thanksgiving (when Graham was 7 weeks old). 

Come Christmas, I didn't feel like decorating. It just felt like too much work. Seth got the boxes down from the attic, and all I could get myself to do was hang the stockings and put out one green Christmas bell that's a Grandma LaPean heirloom. I kept thinking about how silly it was to do the work to put stuff up just to have to take it back down later. Seth put the tree up and I refused to put any decorations on it. Austin seemed like the exact age of I'm-gonna-notice-the-ornaments-and-not-stop-touching-them-like-I've-been-told and I didn't have the energy to fight him. I asked the doctor if my grinch-ness meant I had post-partum depression and was assured that I was simply tired.

When the actual Christmas Day arrived, I was sick. So sick that half-way through the day I had zero voice (usually one of the first things to happen to me), we left early, and I went to bed immediately when we got home--before both of the boys. I was mad that the holiday season had come and gone and I had felt rotten the whole time. It was about then that I started having the panic attacks.

One Sunday night, after battling the cold/sinus infection (I'm not sure what was wrong with me because I couldn't find the time or energy to actually go to the doctor) for like a week, I started freaking out at the thought of being here with both boys by myself. I cried and cried and cried; I made myself sick I cried so much. The week would pass in a blur, barely functioning privately, all the while keeping up appearances. We attended church as normal. We volunteered as normal. We attended all our small group commitments as normal. We attended family events as normal. We made it work. Or at least it looked like we were making it work. 

Seth was keeping the entire family afloat. I couldn't keep up; I had just started disintegrating. He'd come home from work and I'd switch off (though I'd only been barely on all day anyways), and he'd be Sole Parent. (Part of this was legitimately due to non-healing post-partum issues, a series of colds, a bout of mastitis, etc. but feeling physically bad simply made the existing mental stuff just that much worse.) My best friend-ever-in-the-entire-world was in the middle of a family emergency and I couldn't even reach out to her. I had nothing.

After several weeks of this--tiredness, busyness, illness, etc, I hit a wall. It was somewhere mid-February. After having the umpteenth panic attack (I had begun to have them weekly, usually on Sunday nights), I told Seth we had to make some changes, some drastic changes, and in a hurry. I was having scary thoughts and our life's pace was making everyone miserable. It was like we finally ran out of gas on the highway after sputtering on fumes for several weeks. I had nothing left for myself let alone for anyone else. Including my children and my husband.

After discussing it for quite some time, I finally figured out a way to put the Engineer and Counselor on the same playing field. All the feelings-talk and emotions-pouring was getting us nowhere. I remembered a method Seth had developed during our wedding planning and decided to use something similar now. (Hereafter referred to as The Exercise.)

Here's what that looks like:
1) write every single calendar commitment on a post it
2) put hash marks in the corner of the post it representing how many times that commitment happens in a given month (approximately)
3) put the post its in order of importance using this question: "If you had to give up every single thing, but could keep ONE, which would it be?" and then TWO, THREE, etc. until all the post its are in order
4) then the spouse does the same thing
5) the results are computed mathematically (somehow), finding the average between the two lists (or something), resulting in the order that best represents both peoples' needs/desires
6) by looking at a blank calendar and thinking about/praying about how many things you actually want to have yourself committed to on a monthly basis, determine your Number
7) count up hash marks until you get to your Number
8) everything above that Number (everything below the line of "If you could only keep x-Number of things, which would you keep?", gets quit/dropped/left/something)

here's what a portion might look like

For us, we determined that our ideal Number (of regular commitments) was about 20. We felt that 20 scheduled things per month would leave enough room for doctor appointments, pictures, family events, social invitations, spontaneity, household maintenance (like haircuts, mowing the lawn, etc). The problem was that our list contained well over 40 hash marks, so we had to quit or drop approximately half of what we were currently committed to. HALF.

The first difficult part about doing this exercise is that we didn't want to quit anything we were committed to. They were good, Godly, beneficial, helpful, nice, fun things. We liked them. We didn't want to quit any of them. But we had run out of gas and needed to make some big changes. And quickly. Or else our entire family was set to implode. (And it wasn't just Seth and I that were feeling it... I noticed that Austin had gotten reluctant to get in the car, he was exhausted regularly--even though he was getting his naps, etc. I had read about over-committed families causing their kids to break down, but I thought Austin was too young to be affected. Boy was I wrong!) So first we had to come to terms with the fact that we weren't living a sustainable pace and were about to be the "quitters." (And you know that societal thing about how No One Likes a Quitter...)

The second difficult part about doing The Exercise was actually doing the quitting. Having lived in the "Place of Yes" and "If you can, you do" world and the "leader" role amongst many of the commitments, it was hard to let people know that we didn't have time for that/them/it anymore. We were sad, we were hurting and we knew we were likely to hurt others in the quitting process. But we had to put our family first and we prayed God would give people understanding. Especially those that might feel it was a personal issue against them. We prayed that God would open doors for people who felt like we'd closed the door on them. We prayed for leaders to step up where we were stepping down. And we cried. (Over one particularly difficult quitting email, Seth broke down into sobs because quitting this particular thing would mean such a change in our lives.) It stung. It was painful. But the emails had to go out. We had to do this for half of our current commitments!

To coincide with the exercise, we created a new family motto. It's a better fit for our current family than Seth's old one (that we'd lived under for years). We now live by "Just because we can doesn't mean we should." This has been fantastic! We evaluate each invitation, each request, each everything and look at the calendar, our current household maintenance levels, our stress levels, etc. We don't automatically say yes or agree to something just because there isn't anything preventing us from doing it. We've said no to things just because it wouldn't have been easy/the best thing/desirable.

And it's hard! It's hard to simply say "No. We won't be able to do that." I hate the "No, we're too busy" excuse, so I try really hard to make it plain that we are choosing not to do that instead of trying to create elaborate excuses or schemes behind the choice. I refuse to be one of those people that gives some lame/fake excuse. People (as I have on many occasions) see right through that and I believe people deserve better than that. All people need to know is the answer--either yes or no; they certainly deserve not to be lied to. And coming from the place of always having said yes, this has proven to be difficult for us. But boy has our family improved as a result of this change!

This reminds me a bit of cable. (People who know me well know that I use this example A LOT. I'm sorry; it's a good one!) We don't have cable. It's not that we CAN'T AFFORD cable. It's that we CHOOSE NOT TO AFFORD cable. We have created a budget that doesn't have room for cable. Could we negotiate a different budget that has room for cable? Yes. Do we want to? No. It's like that with commitments now. We could find room for a lot of things, but that doesn't mean we want to or should or that it would be the best choice for our family. So we say no. A lot.

We've been living the new, fewer-commitments calendar and new motto for a few weeks now and we're finally starting to feel the benefit. (After we did The Exercise, it took awhile to get everything off the calendar/officially stopped/officially quit--it was a lot of people/things to communicate to!) So once the commitments came off, it took us learning a new skill of saying no and the passing of time for our family to feel the pressure release. It's like we turned off a ceiling fan and just had to wait for it to stop spinning. It wasn't immediate.

So when people ask how I am, I sigh and say "Good. January to mid-February was rough and we're just now starting to come out of that. But, good. We're in a much better place now." I am so excited to be in this new place with our family! I'm happier, healthier (post-partum issues finally resolved!), and more engaged (with my kids, with my husband, with everything on my plate). Seth has more time to enjoy his kids/his life. Austin isn't tired all the time and his vocabulary has sky-rocketed in the last two weeks. (It has since crossed my mind several times if the two are connected.)

Is your family running out of gas? Are you sputtering around on fumes? 
Perhaps The Exercise could work for you. Perhaps developing a new motto would help.

Whatever you do, don't let life fly past so fast and at such an insane pace that you find yourself not enjoying your life. Stop and take action. Even if that means that others have to step up or that people might be offended at your choices. You have to put the oxygen mask on your own family before you're any good to help anyone/anything else with their mask. I'll be praying that the process is easier for you. God is with you; He will give you peace about what steps you should take.