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Heather: Sanity Savers - Managing the Pressures of Motherhood

Heather King is the author of the award-winning blog, The Extraordinary Ordinary. She is a wife and mother of three, a writer and a speaker. Heather is an editor for Story Bleed Magazine and has spoken at several blogging conferences including Blissdom and Type A Parent. Heather has also been featured in Minnesota Parent Magazine and Redbook, was named one of Circle of Mom's Top 25 Mental Health Bloggers and is also a BlogHer 2011 Voice of the Year. When Heather is not writing or mothering, she is most certainly reading.

Motherhood and Connection

I had three different windows open on my computer with three different writing projects in the works. The baby, my third, was waking up and one of her brothers was stalling instead of getting ready for school. Her other brother, my four year old, walked up to me looking flushed and sounding stuffed up.

Oh no.

Within the next hour I was struck with too many thoughts of things left undone. Oh yeah, I need to call the preschool for Asher…I wonder if Miles is transitioning okay at school…I’m probably not giving him enough of my time…Asher needs new shoes…oh (gasp) I have a deadline…I think Elsie might be getting sick, too…

I was thinking all of this and I was also thinking about the heavier things weighing me down, emotional things--the stuff of life and motherhood that sits in the closets of my heart and mind. The fears and the issues. The Very Big Things that I work so hard to ignore but can’t.

So about an hour later, with the baby down for a nap and one child at school and the other with my sister, I sat down to write and couldn’t. I picked up the phone knowing one of my dearest friends may be far too busy to talk. I dialed her number anyway. She answered and my heart jumped with relief. I started talking and didn’t stop for at least a half an hour. I told her everything from my everyday worries to the Very Big Things and then I listened as she very clearly let me know that I’m going to be okay and that she completely understands me.

The day started with chaos and an intense feeling of loneliness in the middle of it all. Then with one phone call, everything looked different, a little more hopeful, and a little brighter around the edges. This is what I need—a connection that restores. It is my sanity saver. Sometimes that’s hard to come by in our face-paced and isolated culture, but I believe that if it can’t be found where you live, it can be found right here on the Internet. In an email, a blog post or maybe a forum conversation. Mothers need these touch-points in the midst of hectic days with so many pressing demands, these words that resonate and the encouragement that is found in discovering that someone else is experiencing the same things.

My friend was that life vest for me today. I hung up the phone and took a moment to make a list of the priorities for today. Just for today. I nursed my sweet baby girl back to sleep and then I took a deep breath, and started writing.

9:00am on Friday September 30

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