Do You have A Life, Mum?

Last fall my daughter’s Doctor commented to my daughter that I (their Mother) didn’t have a life. She was correct, sort of, maybe. Today, almost a year later I guess I still don’t have a life. Per say.
Not having a life, is not a good thing on many levels. Overall I don’t recommend it, and I have, advised people and written, for years, that everyone needs to have a life. What I have meant is that we all function much better living in balance and moderation.

Balance and Moderation are the keys to a good life.

Balance and moderation in everything are the key ingredient to happiness, love, success, and reaching our goals. Trying to achieve any of these things from an unbalanced place will only result in unbalanced results.

For example, here’s what not to do: 
If you wanted to lose weight, obviously nobody should ever try and go on a diet of only 500-800 calories a day. You would lose weight, at least initially, but you would also get sick. You wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever, so you would probably cheat a lot, stop the crazy diet and gain all the weight and more back. You would end up with very unbalanced results because you had tried to reach your goal from a crazy place in an unbalanced way.
For example, here’s a good way to do things:
Start making small and manageable healthy changes to your eating habits and activity level. Increase those changes on a regular but slow enough pace that they are workable. If you keep up this routine within your normal life, one day your old bad habits are gone or at least lessened dramatically and you’ve lost weight. You will have achieved your goal. Happiness and a feeling of success would result because you had worked on your goal in a balanced and moderate way from a reliable place.
Good, so no one is going to try and start living on celery, but they might try and eat a cup of vegetables at dinner every night.

However, when I refer to myself as not having a life as I did earlier, I don’t mean that I’m trying to live on celery. I do indeed have a life it just gets a little wonky sometimes.

For the last eight-ten months, for various miscellaneous reasons, my daughters have been my top priority. Plus a bunch of unexpected work related problems erupted. It’s been a crazy, off-balance, tiring last few months. But today, as I sit in my “unbalanced,” “not having a life” life, I look at both my daughters with pride. They have grown, matured, and blossomed. Both of them have made some great strides forward in their teen lives.
Actually, we all have grown, individually and together.
And to be honest, I don’t regret one second of my so-called unbalanced life. It has helped my daughters achieve who they are today. It has brought us all to a right place. Plus, I am a Mother, and this is what Mothers do.
I do it from a place of love. The best and deepest love I’ve even known.
So, my response to the Doctor who commented about my life last fall, I say:

Sure, sometimes my life might get a little unbalanced, but that’s okay because I do have “A life.” “My life” includes two beautiful daughters among other things. That’s “my life.”