Finding Balance

Finding balance in life--it sounds so easy, but it's oh so hard to do.  As a martial artist, I've heard a lot about this.  The founder of Han Mu Do, the Korean martial art I've studied, Dr. He-Young Kimm, has spoken often about balance in life, and though it's been quite a while since I've seen him, as I now live across the country, I remember the many times he spoke about how we have to find balance in life.

This is something that has not gotten any easier for me with age.  Between my large family, leading Girl Scouts, organizing Vacation Bible School, teaching Sunday school, homeschooling, cooking, housekeeping, and writing, I have a lot of trouble finding balance.  For a couple of years, I was quite successful at finding an hour a day to write, but that's gone by the wayside.  Lately it's been more like an hour a week, which is completely unacceptable in my opinion, but I guess that also means I have plenty of room for improvement.

Juggling all of my obligations can be difficult. Some days I feel like I have more social interaction with adults through Twitter than through any other means, as sometimes, I'm too overwhelmed to even look at Facebook, as it takes a lot less time to type in a 140-character message in Twitter than to make a decent comment on Facebook.  The phone is often out of the question.  There's just no time.

The most amazing complement I ever received from someone not related to me was when I was called #HeroMom by someone I'm a huge fan of. It meant a lot, and I wish I felt like I was, but very often I don't.

Sure, my kids are still alive, and they're all brilliant.  My twelve year-old son is working on algebraic equations involving absolute values as well as graphing lines by slope. All the others are amazing too.  We always have food to eat, and there's usually an enormous pile of clean laundry, even though it's very infrequently put away--more often it's hidden in the luggage. My husband and I try to go out alone at least once every couple of weeks, if not every week, and that really helps my sanity.

My obligations as church youth group organizer and Vacation Bible School Director are things that I enjoy and believe in doing. Still, it can be very difficult to find time for my passion, writing.

So, have I found this balance I seek?  Well, I'd say I'm more like a pendulum.  Some days my time is more one way than the other.  In the course of a week, all the necessities are taken care of, but I'm always striving to do better, and I know that as I continue to juggle my responsibilities, I will improve.