my new friend caroline recently shared with me that many of her women role models don’t seem to balance love and work as much as they appear to be merely surviving love and work. implied in this statement is the notion that mothers are in a constant state of reaction to life’s curve balls: forgotten lunches, toddler illnesses, workplace dramas, heaps of laundry, et cetera. the holy grail (which i often mistake for a wine glass or champagne cocktail) then becomes that rare stillness that gives rise to intentionality. it’s the chance to act, and not react. it’s about making wise choices about those few moving parts in our lives that we can actually control.

for me, it’s difficult to imagine what a life of balance could look like when mere survival seems to be the most prevalent motherhood mode. but in the words of carolyn g. heilbrun, “what matters is that lives do not serve as models; only stories do that.” essentially, even as most of us are caught up in the business of reaction and survival, we have moments when our thinking shifts, when we trust our instincts, make counter-cultural choices, take charge, and replace conventions and expectations with trail-blazing honesty. even those of us who live lives of survival have a story or two to tell about a moment of balance. and in the words of my new friend caroline, “stories take us beyond abstract theory and into the world of the living and integrating.”

there are tales of a new way lurking in every person’s history; there is potential of trail-blazing honesty in every encounter. the key is to extract these stories from others and to share our own. when we do this we are collectively constructing a new narrative — one that has the power to draw us out of survival mode, even if it’s just for one moment at a time.

[source for this post is located on the bibliography page found on the sidebar to your right.]