The first week of September has whizzed by – WHOA – and I feel totally behind. We are still unpacking suitcases from our vacation (we returned over a week ago). All my intentions of grabbing hold of everything this week and wrestling it into a shape of my choosing have had to check themselves. September usually means YAY, we’re getting back on a schedule! And yet, it never
quite
happens that way. I don’t know how I always manage to forget this, since one of my two housemates teaches a daily masterclass in Setting Aside Expectations and has been doing so throughout her entire existence.
Four years ago, I very unexpectedly went into labor four weeks early – actually, it was Labor Day, which was a bit on the nose. I thought for sure it was a drill, and I didn’t even pack a real bag when we went to the hospital because I was certain they’d send me home and tell me I’d just peed myself. Instead, they checked me into Labor and Delivery right away. 12 hours later, I was holding the five-pound, spindly-legged baby girl who had decided to forgo her final weeks in utero to come out and see me. The rest, as they say, is history. No plan was ever safe again.
I like to think of Rosalind as having demanded to join the world at the beginning of September rather than October because September in the United States is universally known to be a time of change, re-orientation, re-setting, and re-committing to a schedule, a routine, and a paradigm. Perhaps she knew that I, her mother-to-be, had recently finished graduate school and was anxiously refreshing the MLA Job Search page for academic job postings so that I could start doing applications before her birth. Perhaps she knew that I was trying to PLAN, to exert control over my calendar, to try and create for myself something resembling expectations for what the coming academic year might hold. Perhaps she was like, “Mom, better to put an end to that fantasy NOW”. Ros didn’t care what the OB-GYN or I had planned for her – she came out when SHE was ready, and that made one of us. The only baby-specific object my husband and I actually owned at that point was a car seat, and we were lucky (or were we?) that that’s the only one you actually need in order to be released from the hospital. She passed the car seat test, spent some time under UV lights to get her bilirubin down, and with that, our new family was pushed out into the world, with no choice but to improvise the rest and to leave behind any existing notions of control over our new lives. And with every September that rolls around, we get to congratulate ourselves on one more year of Managing Just Fine.
Even with this ultimate Labor-Day experience in my rearview mirror, even with this walking, talking lesson in chill-the-fuck-out-and-roll-with-the-punches living in my house and eating all the cheese, I still forget all the time that September is not a magic aura that restores order to things upon arrival after the relaxed routines of the summer months. It’s full of surprises that will test the strength of the routines and the foundations (just ask Coach MK). Feeling Behind is part of the deal, and it does NOT mean you are doing it wrong. I’ll keep reminding you – if you keep reminding me. #coachedandloved
You are #coachedandloved and #winningatlife
Coach Sarah
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