faith unfaded

I’m a multitasker. I always have been. Why do two things when you can do ten? In the 90s my multitasking was at an all-time high. Four kids, a teaching career, baseball team mom, PTA president, volunteer judge…my plate was always full.

I thrived in the chaos because outward activity silenced mental torment. There was still so much unresolved trauma.

Now my mind is calm, albeit overactive. It’s like a car idling high, a stuck throttle ramping it up. I’ve learned to immediately stop mental spirals but I go down rabbit holes often. Opening a can of beans for a pot of chili can lead to me googling the inventor Ezra Warner and the discovery of its use only in the Civil War—it was too dangerous for home use until William Lyman modernized it—and the next thing I know I’m pondering Kentucky’s divided role in the war.

My mind is a beautiful, scary thing.

I’ve learned how to power it down in the evening—light reading in a warm bath or familiar sitcoms on the TV—but during the day there’s an unending to-do list. Caregiving, pitching articles, attending community events, blog writing, book writing, family commitments…the list goes on and on. I am a master multitasker.

But there is an image seared into my brain—and my heart. It stops me short every time.

My kids were in high school and I was teaching and working on my Master’s. We were playing Fishbowl, a charades-type game. My son was impersonating me and he looked straight ahead, fingers typing on an imaginary keyboard, and said, “Not now. I’m busy.”

Everyone laughed and shouted “Mom!” I laughed too, but inside I crumbled. I’d wasted their younger years being immature and self-absorbed. Now I was focused and determined to make a better life for us all, but at what expense?

That memory still makes me wince, a reminder of one of my many mistakes as a mom. You don’t realize how fleeting those childhood years are until you’re standing in an empty nest reorganizing priorities in your head.

Since I began writing full-time, I’ve found myself sliding back into old habits. As my overworked thumbs try to keep up with rapidly flowing words—90% of my writing is done on the Notes app in my phone—I find myself only half-engaged with the world around me.

But then I see my son—teasingly mimicking a barely-present me—and I correct course immediately.

Swing talks with my dad are phone-free for me. Spending time with my mom is a solo activity—no simultaneous work. Card games with the family are focused fun. I realize that I’m never going to look at a magazine and wish I had published more articles. Or a checklist and wish I had finished it faster.

But I may stand in front of a casket and wish I’d spent more time being fully present. I already feel that way about my kids’ years at home. The fight to push away the guilt and regret is relentless at times. While I can’t change the past, I can make the most of the present.

Being fully present now is how I make peace with the mistakes I made before.