Chasing Fireflies

After seeing lightening bugs in our backyard, I was recently taken back to a moment about a month before our wedding.  Brian and I took Jack for a walk in Goodale Park.  We were set to be married there.  We also wanted to see what the temperature / atmosphere / lighting / etc. was like at the time of our wedding.  We got married later in the day.  Our ceremony started at 7 pm.

We walked around the park, and as the sun went down, the lightening bugs came out.  Thousands of them.  There were more lightening bugs than I have ever seen anywhere.  Everywhere you looked there were twinkling fireflies by the hundreds.  I could've sat in that park for hours simply watching the glinting lights.  It was completely magical in every sense of the word and it was a moment that I can remember like it was yesterday.

While reliving that memory, I also relived the emotion of the time.  The excitement we felt right before our wedding, the promise of happiness and the prospect of the future are all emotions that spark when I reminisce about that night.  Everything was so much simpler then.

I wouldn't trade places with myself now to go back to that time.  I love Kate and have enjoyed being a Mom more than anything in this world.  The thing is, I've yet to find a good balance between working, being a Mom, being a wife, being a daughter, sister, friend, etc.  You fill in the blank.

Sometimes it feels like rather than being good at anything, I am simply failing at everything.  I can't seem to figure out how to balance everything.  I sacrifice time on a daily basis and that always involves my time or time allotted for making dinner or cleaning.  But then I wake up the next day feeling even more behind then yesterday.  It is a vicious cycle.

I see parents at work every single day that seem to be managing just fine.  I see parents at Kate's daycare that certainly have it all figured out.  Certainly I can figure it out too, right?  I just haven't seemed to be able to grasp what and how to efficiently spend my time during the day to successfully get the things done that are important to me (working out, taking a relaxing bath occasionally, perhaps reading a book) and the things that I want to do (blog, videos, husband time) and the things that have to get done (dinner, cleaning, next day preparations) and be a Mom (Kate, Jack, and Bun time). 

I just don't understand how it is done.  Recently, at the end of every day, I come to one conclusion: there is just not enough time in the day.  And it is FLYING by.  It makes me sad how fast the time is going by.  And I'm just sitting here, day in and day out, doing everything that I can to get by.  And I only have one kid!  How do people do it with more than one kid??  I am so, so confused because I will absolutely forego dinner completely to hang out with Kate.  But when Kate needs dinner, that won't be an option...

When I think of the night right before our wedding where the fireflies twinkled by the thousands and the atmosphere seemed to sparkle, I am reminded about how much love and emotion being a Mom has created.  I think of taking Kate there to experience magic in its truest form, to experience a surreal and breathtaking night, and to cherish that unearthly feeling.

I know I will strike a balance somehow.  I have to, right?  There are millions of people in the world that do exactly what I am doing and more.  I know it is possible.  I just don't know how to get there.  I just don't know how to get back to that moment - that carelessness of chasing fireflies - where you've not a worry in the world and can enjoy the moment.

I have got to figure this out.