You Can Have It All, Just Not All At The Same Time

I am walking home from my dear friend’s house at 10pm with my sleeping second son strapped to my chest. It is February 2nd, the eve of my 33rd birthday. I am returning from a song salon, a gathering where songwriters help other songwriters songwrite.

I feel like a waning moon, half lit up and half dark. When we had our first boy I put a lot of energy into preserving my career. I played shows with my baby on my back, I leaned over the car seat to nurse my baby at 60 mph, we all co-slept in strange motel beds. It was a romantic adventure for a while. A few months after Emmett turned one, he was walking and talking and opining. Just try to strap him down for a 5 hour drive and then be a civilized human at a house concert…. just try and strap him down! We would go out on the road as a family, I would end up playing the show solo and still we would all become weary. I had to set down the idea that I could Have It All exactly the way I wanted it and pick up motherhood. I am lit up by my sons as a mother and unlit as a performing songwriter. Just because that side of me is dark at the moment, doesn’t mean it has ceased to exist. It’s just as present, but isn’t illuminated by the sun.

My days fly by without having much to show, just two little people, hopefully sleeping, and gratefully still alive. I was terrified of putting down my career because I always assumed that once you put something down, you walk on, unable to pick it back up again thanks to the ineffable forward march of time. Now I can see my songwriting career as a beautiful boulder i used to push up a hill. I stopped pushing it, and now I can sit in it’s shade, having a picnic with my family.

A very wise woman once told me “You can have it all, just not all at the same time”. I find this statement to be a deep breath. It gives me allowance to stand exactly where I am without the pressure to add more on my shoulders. I don’t have to be a full moon all the time! What would the tides look like that way?

I turn 33 on February 3rd under a full moon in a town that I love, married to a man who supports me no matter what crazy scheme I have hatched, with two healthy and darling boys. What an incredible blessing. Sometimes, I even get to sit down with songwriters and songwrite.