Spinning Plates

from millerwhitescripts.blogspot.com

Using spinning plates to describe someone's life is cliche... but it's true. We all have our priorities and we try to keep them balanced. Sometimes we add more plates to our balancing act and struggle a bit to keep them all moving. It's a metaphor that adequately describes that frantic and precarious feeling we all get at times.

I guess I had my plates spinning in a way where I almost felt comfortable. Sure there were times I took on too much, but I personally felt like I was able to get them into balance (ask my husband and he might tell you a different story. We're still trying to define what I believe "bad" stress actually is). It did get to the point after almost 3 years where I felt like I needed a little break from school and took the summer off to have our fabulous vacation in Thailand and didn't go to summer school. But this is where the spinning plates metaphor seems to really hit home. Once you have a couple of dozen plates spinning and you put them down... how do you get them spinning again?

To keep with the metaphor you have to get each individual plate going again before you can add a new one. I kept spinning my family plate, couldn't put that one down (you can vacation with a couple of plates, it's okay), but now I'm trying to get those school plates spinning again and it's not easy, there's at least half a dozen plates for that category alone. I have to get the kids' activities plate going again... I've got to spin reading and cooking and cleaning and social media and friends and birthdays and schedules and phone calls and business and promises and... and... and...

the list keeps going.

I feel like I sort of lost my motivation while on vacation, maybe it was because I realized how much I was actually doing. Don't get me wrong, I can't sit at home and do nothing (or just do domestic work); I need SOME mental stimulation. I just don't know if I'm going to get myself back up to speed, it took me those 3 years to work up to that level.

from recyclethis.co.uk

There's probably a greater lesson in this that I'm not willing to admit yet.

I was getting a little stressed, maybe. I might have started dropping plates. Forcing a restart might be the best way to get things moving the right way again. The only problem is, right now I just feel like I'm messing up. I know everyone says: "No one cares if you're perfect," and that means I shouldn't care either... but the truth is no one wants to lose a hard worker, or someone that can deliver. They do "wonder what happened" to the perfectionist that missteps, and I hate being that person.

My biggest focus right now is getting those plates spinning again, and trying not to come off as panicky and awkward because inside I'm freaking out that I need to be at the top of my game.

Bear with me as I try to get my act back in the circus ;-)