So Why is Chaos relaxing?

Just in case anybody is wondering about the title of this blog, I will attempt to wax philosophical while in my dressing gown.  It has to do with all of the restrictions and limits that we put on ourselves in this crazy modern world. I try not to be controlled by them, to remember what is important, and to relax along the way in the chaos that is having a family.

Our house is always messy. I must admit that it does get to me. Living with so much stuff. I can spend a couple of hours in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, tidying, and then walk into the  living room to find that the kids have been just as busy as me. K'nex everywhere, guitars everywhere, socks everywhere, books all over the floor, as well as shoes. What is it about socks, though? There are always socks in every room - and not just baby socks. People seem to take off their socks willy nilly!?

Of course, there are usually knitting bags and my ongoing projects and patterns and things adding to the mess. I am not a naturally tidy person. Al is. I am sure it is worse for him because my threshold for mess is much higher than his. But then again, I have realized that I am happier with it that way. It has  been a conscious effort to concentrate on doing things with the kids, playing games, reading, listening to music, or making music, rather than complain about the mess. I hope that my memories of being a parent are going to be spending time with them, rather than complaining about them. And I hope that their memories of me as a parent are about the fun things we did, or the conversations we had, rather than me being in a bad mood all the time.


Not going to school takes a lot of stress out of our lives. We don't have to live our lives to somebody else's time table. We don't have to worry about being late for school, or traffic, or lost gym kits, or getting homework done, and we don't have to worry about what the other kids, mums, teachers will think of us. That does change as the kids get older, and they choose to take part in activities to which they have to commit, but for the most part, our lives are fairly relaxed.

I am the one who has been stressed the most I think, because as they have grown up, and have not been quite ready to take care of themselves or organize themselves, I have had to do it. And it was hard for quite a few years when I was the only one able to get them places, and I was out every day doing home ed things, and out every night doing other other taxi services. Thank goodness I didn't have to worry about getting up for school as well....how do so many parents do that?! They can't be enjoying life.

But Chaos is good. It means we are pretty adaptable. It means we are resourceful. It means we are not under the thumb of an arbitrary scheduler.  It means that we have spent years lying in bed, reading books, cuddling, playing word games, or getting up to cook pancakes for breakfast, while there is a steady stream of crying kids and grumpy, harassed parents strolling past our house. Sometimes I feel smug. Most of the time I just feel lucky to appreciate chaos for what it is. Having the time to smile. :-)

Comments

  1. Am on Dunk's computer so putting this here not by email.
    I saw this and thought of you
    http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/2011/03/procrastinators-anonymous.html
    Excellent blog but *really* long post
    much love
    martine

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts