Learning My Worth

Ever since my sweet son Dylan was surgically removed from my body in the O.R. at Alaska Regional Hospital, life became blissfully busy. Fast forward a few years and I was a stay at home mom with three young kids who were all two years a part. I didn’t have a job that brought in income anymore but I was up to my mom jeans in dirty diapers, sippy cups and fixing endless meals and snacks. I was sleep deprived and tired most days but I had the most important job there was. Busy to me equalled being worthy. Worthy of being called a good mom, worthy of the love I received from my husband and kids, worthy of the privilege of being able to stay home and devote my life to being a wife and a mom.

If being busy gave me worth, I was killing it in those days.

Hit the fast forward button again and my youngest went to kindergarten. I was a full time mom, part-time employee, PTA volunteer, child taxi driver and dog rescuer! We began hosting exchange students which brought our family so much joy and grew our family’s size to 6 and even 7 people at times! If being busy gave me worth, my Yeti overflowth with the stuff!

But I didn’t feel the happiness I thought I should.

I had a horrible boss. I was tired and short with my family, the ones I loved most. My volunteer commitments that I always enjoyed became a burden and I was burned out. The toughest pill to swallow was because I had taken so many years off from a career to raise my family, I made less money in one month than my husband did in one day. (Ouch!)

Once again, since I measured my worth on being able to heroically juggle all that life threw at me physically and emotionally with ease, I kept going.

Fast forward to 2020. COVID cursed us with its appearace , I wasn’t working anymore and those three kids of mine and their bandwidth sucking school Chrome Books came home. They started e-learning and crashed our network, ate all of the food like a biblical swarm of locusts and of course, kept me busy. I hardly noticed I had lost my job. We baked, bought toilet paper, managed Zoom calls and learned to wear a mask everywhere we went.

Today, the kids have gone back to school. I cleaned up my house, organized closets and started taking golf lessons. It’s now November. For the first time in nearly 16 years, I am not busy. Like, not even a little bit. What is my worth if I have no heroic purpose between the hours of 8:30 and 4? This feeling will likely always reappear in my life like bad reflux after spicy food. Unwelcome but predictable and expected.

The truth is, I thought being busy should have made me feel like I was killing it at life when in reality it was actually taking more life away. So in a move that is VERY unlike me, I’m not going to do anything about it right now. I will embrace, what I am now calling my “Trophy Wife” period and relax in my athleisure wear with a Diet Coke.

The brilliant Maya Angelou said, “I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side.” That is my current inner monologue. I repeat it in my head when I start feeling sorry for myself.

One day life will get back to normal. When it does, I need to remember that my work load does not equal my worth… only I determine that.