Sometimes you can’t do the thing you planned.
How to pivot without falling and call it a pirouette
“Put down your fists. Try collaborating with the mystery instead.” -Elizabeth Gilbert
Hello.
I’m going to state something obvious that I still struggle to accept—sometimes you just can’t do the thing you planned. When you’re a mom, sometimes turns into most times. This is a lesson I’m learning in perpetuity—how to bend without breaking, how to pivot without falling and call it a pirouette.
This morning, I woke up before my mom (but not the baby!) to the scene of a yellow stain the size of a lake in my office. Our black lab Maya has been having accidents in the house lately, and as I spent an hour scrubbing the smell out with baking soda while also trying to feed Noah breakfast and drink my coffee before it turned cold, the waves of frustration began to surge.
There are external reasons I can point to– my husband has been gone almost three weeks on a trip to visit family in India, Noah’s fully entered TODDLERVILLE and everything is a fresh battleground—meals, diaper changes, getting in and out of the car seat, not to mention bedtime. Maya’s accident this morning was just the icing on the cake.
But, if I’m honest, the real frustration is internal. “Why do I need so much help?” I scribbled angrily in my journal. “Is everyone else this exhausted/frustrated?” Feeling an unwavering tension in my neck and shoulders for the past few weeks, I’d already scheduled an afternoon massage. My mom agreed to take Noah to his swimming lesson later and our trusted babysitter showed up to take him out of the house for a few hours so I could have an almost full day of self-care.
Yet.
All of the resources, time, and help still didn’t feel like enough.
Every interruption, every foiled attempt to complete my to-do list, take that early morning walk, finish that project, or get a 15-minute chunk of time to write without answering a text message or putting out an imaginary fire fuels my sense of injustice. Why is life sabotaging me? I sometimes jokingly (but seriously) wonder, out loud.
When I was finishing the first big edit of The Pattern Shop, I carved out 10 days to create my own “writer’s retreat” in a little cabin in Arkansas. I was in the throes of grief after losing my Dad less than a year before, the pandemic was still raging, and the leader I admired and worked closely with at the charter school where I was a school nurse, called me during my retreat to let me know he was resigning, immediately.
During that trip my laptop stopped working, I had distressing confrontations with several family members, my close friend lost her fiance to a sudden brain aneurysm, and I experienced waves of grief and release like never before.
That’s when I recorded a pep talk to myself that I’ll never forget. Sobbing with a mixture of rage, loss, and exhaustion, something else came through, too. Grit. Perseverance. And a glimmer of hope.
You deserve your best effort
Welcome. If you’re new here, I’m a writer, new mama, and grieving daughter, exploring what it means to fully embrace the creative messiness of life. I share whole-hearted, weekly reflections to help us remember our shared humanity. Thank you for being here.
As creators, mothers, and more, it’s easy to idealize how we will do the work of creating, nurturing, and living.
It will be like this, I consult my rainbow color-coded calendar. I will look like this (I imagine a version of myself far less wrinkled and slumpy). It will feel like that (dreamily eyes every Pinterest-inspired mood board ever created).
Where is room for the unexpected? For the human to be, well, human?
Why do I continuously refuse to not only allow for the upheavals and accidents of life but its mysteries, too? The good kind of surprises I can say YES to because there’s space to accept and receive them?
Noah is living proof of a magical surprise I never anticipated. And yet. I hold my fists up, waiting to beat back all the inconveniences that take me off track, like some sort of never-ending Whack-A-Mole game I can never win.
What if the inconveniences were opportunities? To soften. To ask for as much help as I really need and someday learn to do it with less shame? To let my beautifully color-coded calendar be just like a rainbow, something I can aspire and hope for, appreciating it even more because of its rarity.
Or, maybe it’s okay to keep fighting, as long as I know what I’m fighting for. A life that’s as messy as it is miraculous. Fragile and beautiful and very, very human.
Keep on fighting the good fight, whatever that means for you today- moles, dragons, or your own frustration at how unplannable life really is.
All my love,
Mariah
P.S. I am SO excited about this month’s Nature Journaling Workshop, Noticing Resilience. 🌿🌻📓
I seriously cried putting it together, just marveling at all of the incredible ways nature shows us how to adapt and survive the unimaginable (did you know fire ants create literal floating life rafts during floods that help them survive for days?! 🔥🐜🌧️) There’s a lot of hope to be found and if you’re like me, ya need it. Join me THIS Saturday at 11 AM EST for inspiration, creativity, and maybe some tears of wonder.
Need some positive affirmation or a spiritual hype session?
I’m offering a limited amount of tarot and oracle card readings and would love to help you remember just how badass and awesome you are. Tarot is a great tool when you need clarity, confidence, and reassurance. Book a reading with me today! 💖
"how to pivot without falling and call it a pirouette" -- this is beautiful. Yes. More power to you, Mariah!
Hi Mariah, a big hug. I hear you. I feel and have felt all this too, as another kind of caregiver. Often, especially with grief (the ultimate discombobulator) no matter how much I tried to reframe, manage, and redefine whatever I was feeling...because I was trying to do that, it got worse, or erupted.
I love how you pirouette to seeing this all as being human. I wholeheartedly agree. These days I try to gently hold the pain and frustration and count breaths. My overactive brain needs the space to calm or to recognise that 'being human' is ok. Judging ourselves is the auto-bully.
So, I just wanted to share that sometimes we can give ourselves a hug, instead of trying to be tough, grit, fight...we can even hug and pirouette with the neatest flexibility, agility. as Brené Brown says Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart (Braving the Wilderness). You're doing amazing Human-ing!!
P.S a caregivers trick is to invest in a good thermos mug so your coffee/tea doesn't get cold. Otherwise we make at least 10 cups and never get to drink any before its cold!