Hellobee

One of the hardest parts about transitioning to a single mom has been learning how to let go. And not just the big heavy emotional things, like the life I had envisioned or the family I pictured in my future. The daily things. I have to balance what gets clean in my house, how long dishes sit in the sink before I do another load in the dishwasher. Do I really have time to fit in a nap right now, or would it be wiser to use those two hours designing flyers for my job? How much can I truly be productive, and when do I stop my inner ticking off of my to-do list and sit down and play legos with the kids?

As a stay-at-home-mom, I wore a lot of hats. I pushed myself to really make a “job” out of it. My garden was substantial and I grew at least 60% of the produce we ate, if not more. I raised all of our chickens from freshly-hatched chicks and butchered and processed them myself for our freezer. 90% of our meat was sourced from my own land, through farmed chickens and wild hunted game. I spent my evenings canning, dehydrating, preserving my harvest for months to come.

Another “hobby” I turned to was carpentry. I built all but maybe 6 pieces of furniture in our home, from beds to bathroom vanities to tables and kitchen cabinets. I hand make nearly all of my children’s Christmas gifts, wanting to go for the whole “Santa’s workshop” vibe. I took great pains to do it all myself, and really enjoyed the process.

Now, though, I have less time to devote to that type of providing. In order to provide financially, I need to spend several hours a day at my computer. And as I’m choosing to work from home with limited school hours, that means the time I used to spend canning or gardening or building is used on working. It’s fun, and fulfilling, in a different way. Yet it’s difficult to see my garden covered in weeds and not planted with winter veggies, to realize I don’t have the time to devote to canning this week so I may just have to compost the pumpkins I forgot I had stored, or to take a hard look at my hours truly available in the coming weeks and buy a gift I would have much rather made myself.

Many days, I feel like I’m failing at everything. I’ve thrown all these balls in the air and they just keep falling. I can’t manage to juggle more than one or two. I know that in time I’ll be able to work things back in, but then there will be a new baby and I’ll need to take on more work and the reality is I have to let go. For at least a couple of years, I’m going to have to put many of my food production pursuits on the back burner. My kids can eat vegetables from the grocery store. And it’s silly for me to feel bad about that!

I’ve been so wrapped up in this personal pursuit of self-sufficiency that taking a step back is difficult and makes me feel defeated. I’m disappointed that a dream I had hoped to realize within a specific time frame is being pushed back several years. And I’m trying my best to reconcile those feelings and move forward with new balance and practices without getting too upset about it. I know I’ll get there. And someday, maybe not in five years like I had hoped, someday I will have the hobby farm of my dreams: milking my goat, making my own cheese, shopping in my backyard and only needing the farmer’s market or coop once every few months.

It will happen. Eventually. But for now, I have to let that dream go, and embrace this reality. And who knows, maybe a new source of income will be through my self-sufficiency pursuits. I’m starting to research options like farm tours or mommy-and-me gardening classes. We’ll see where it goes. As they say, life is what happens while you’re busy making plans. And I’m trying my best to fully embrace this life I’ve been given.