Whatever I am guided to do will be a success. I learn from every experience. My pathway is a series of stepping stones to ever greater successes.
Long ago, my mom and step-dad stopped at the window of a petstore to admire the hamsters. One of the baby hamsters was determined to run in the wheel with the big guys. Her stubby little legs couldn’t keep up and she would get swung halfway up the wheel by the speed of the faster runners, before gravity crashed her back down on her head. Then she would climb back into the wheel and try again. My parents were charmed by the moxie of this little hamster and took her home, with another hamster buddy to keep her company. Hamster buddy ended up being a male so before long, two hamsters became many more. There were too many babies for her nest, and we’ve all heard what hamsters do when this happens. Fortunately, mama hamster had a less traumatizing solution (from a human perspective, of course). She took half her babies out of the nest, and built them a new nest in another part of the cage. She would spend all day running between nests to nurse all the babies. I’ve been thinking about this mama a lot lately as we are back to homeschooling our two children. While my husband diligently works in our quiet bedroom, I parse out my time in small increments to keep both kids functioning and engaged in school. I tell big kid to wait for a second while I help little kid send her journal entry to her teacher. I turn on the reading video for little kid and dash out to the livingroom to help big kid divide decimals. I get him on his way, and it’s back to little kid to close youtube and get her started on handwriting and spelling. Once she’s got the idea, it’s back to big kid who is now in a full blown meltdown because Oh, no! He has to write a personal narrative and he can’t remember anything that has ever happened in his life. There is nothing he can write about except minecraft, and that’s not personal enough, and he will never be able to do this assignment! This problem is clearly going to take more time than I’ve got for one kid, so after he’s calmed down, and he is trying to remember something from his past that he might be able to translate into a written story, I dash back to little kid to circle every number on her math assignment that she’s written backwards, so she can correct that while I’m sitting with big kid, tossing out memories from all the trips we’ve taken in the last 4 years.
By the end of the day, I fall into bed unsure of what I’ve done with my day. It is difficult feeling successful when you are living in five minute increments, most of which are interrupted. The house is full of half finished attempts to do more. Sometimes I won’t see until the next day that, oh yeah, I brought the vinegar into the bathroom yesterday to try to get the hard water spots off the counter, but then little kid needed help recording her reading assignment. And the fact that it’s a choice we have made to keep the kids at home right now, makes me feel very much like the baby hamster that keeps choosing to climb onto the wheel only to fall on my head over and over. She also ended her days having never successfully met her goals. But as I’m writing this, it’s occurring to me that I might be missing the lesson here. The hamster wheel just goes around. It might feel like progress, but they aren’t really getting anywhere. What about the practice of picking yourself up and trying again despite repeated failure? In this particular way, that hamster was further along the path to success than I have ever been. I also want to recognize that success is a subjective term, and I might not be allowing myself to appreciate the successes that I do have, because I’m too busy being frustrated by those I’m not achieving. Like mama hamster, I am overcoming challenges and successfully getting myself and my family to the end of each day. School work gets done. Meals are cooked and eaten. We have clean clothes to wear. Most importantly, our family dynamic is healthy and reasonably happy. I can learn from these experiences instead of regretting the ones I did not have, and all the items not checked off on my todo list. These successes are the ones that are building towards my future, and they are valuable and worthy.