Maybe I'm amazed

Still no word on the school situation. We drove by both schools this weekend and wondered some more.

This fall has been kind of a midlife crisis for me, in a way. I've been so frustrated with work and my life in general, and worrying that I'm in an unhealthy place, and questioning many of my past decisions and wondering how or if I can reverse some of them, regain opportunities I passed up on, take chances I never took. I've taken steps towards doing things I've been thinking about doing for a long time, and resolving certain loose ends. I've also been looking long and hard at better ways to take care of myself, since doing so would undoubtedly make me nicer to be around. I haven't had much patience, or been very nice to have around this past fall. I love to read and write and create and spend quiet time thinking and take long walks, and my current lifestyle leaves me with little time or space to do much beyond keep up with the daily newspaper, write a blog post or take a few needlepoint stitches here and there, and hop on the elliptical machine for maybe a half-hour if I have the energy after I've gotten home and wrangled both kids into bed. I want to learn to use my sewing machine and make some stuff for the house. I want to get in really good shape and lose 40 pounds and run a 5-miler. I want to go through our CD collection and clean up all the smudges and scan my favorite stuff onto my iPod. I want to purge my closet and organize my attic. I want to write real letters to my friends and reconnect with people I haven't talked to in years. With a more predictable schedule and more energy, I could probably do these things.

I find myself wondering a lot lately whether my frustration comes because my expectations are too high. Is it realistic for a parent who has two little kids, no household help, a full-time job involving frequent travel, and a husband who travels a lot for his job, to have time to learn/apply new skills or the energy to read more than a few pages of a novel before passing out? To have the motivation to spend an hour working out instead of reading or catching up on e-mail? Will carving out time and energy to spend on myself become easier or harder as my kids get older? I know their needs will change, but will the amount of time required to meet them?

People I love often say to me that they don't know how I do everything I do. I honestly don't know either, because I don't feel like I'm doing all that much, and I often question my sanity in even trying. I feel like the man behind the curtain a lot of the time, doing just enough on the home and work fronts that people think I'm keeping up and stay off my back. And I don't feel like I'm accomplishing much that is noteworthy. Certainly, raising healthy kids and doing a halfway decent job at work at the same time is an achievement, but I don't see people failing at that. People do it every day and probably better than I do. I don't see it as anything remarkable.

Here is what I wonder about: I think about people who have to take truly difficult, dangerous, or demeaning jobs, or travel far from their loved ones, in order to support a family. I think about people who have had to give up their beloved careers to care for a relative with health issues, and do it with grace and dignity. How do they do it? I think about people who have achieved something incredible professionally and have done it with even more kids at home, with little money and big dreams of success (like J.K. Rowling), or with significant physical challenges (like Laura Hillenbrand, or Stephen Hawking). I think about people like Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote life-changing books (on scraps of paper with a quill pen in poor lighting) while raising five kids, running a labor-intensive nineteenth-century household, and being a pastor's wife. How on earth did she do it?

Or this guy? He was a train conductor, a performer, an artist who was part of Baltimore's painted-screen fame, and he only had half a body....