I’m sharing this with the encouragement of my friend Shawn. This year, I decided to make more time for writing. I’ve been blogging for years, but it wasn’t until recently that I started to feel a pull towards creative writing. I’ve been keeping a journal and writing whatever comes to mind as often as I can. This post is literally an excerpt from that journal. I hope you enjoy it.

“Today I’m sitting in a coffee shop, sipping my dirty chai latte and diving into my week’s worth of design work at the leisurely pace of a confident, millennial CEO. My hair is curled and I’m wearing mascara. The barista knows me by name and there’s a pleasant calm settling around me as I gaze out the window next to my table into a cloudy mid-winter sky.

Yesterday, around this time I was changing a dirty diaper so gnarly that as I pulling my daughter’s pajama bottoms down a fleck of poop shot out onto the bib of my denim overalls and stuck there. My hair was dirty and my eyes were smudged with makeup that was at least a day old, maybe two. Our toddler looked up at me with sad eyes, sweetly pleading, “Almost”? Remembering my words (“we’re almost done!”)  as she struggled through nearly every diaper change these last few weeks. Yes, almost done, darling.

So is the life of a working, stay-at-home mom; although this contrast in my days is a more recent development. Before I realized I needed one full day to myself to work, I had been trying to shove my productivity into the margins of motherhood, with a two hour reprieve from grandma most afternoons to get my work done and get dinner on the table. Now that I have this chunk of uninterrupted time to focus, I realize how desperately I needed it. You can’t pour from an empty well and you can’t be productive creatively without the space to move slowly. To get a little bored and find inspiration. To spend some time in solitude with an idea in order to find clarity. 

I’ve always loved being a stay-at-home mom and couldn’t imagine it any other way, but now that life is feeling a little more balanced, I find I’m loving it even more. I have more patience and peace for the days it feels like I’m deep in the trenches, but honestly they feel fewer and further between. A pleasant calm has settled around me here too, and I’m finding more joy in the small moments. Like the early morning conversations that often revolve around pizza. Like the way my daughter says “Hold tight” as she nestles her head on my shoulder and curls her little arms around my neck. Yes, hold tight is exactly what I want to do with this moment in time in all it’s messy, hard, wonderful glory.”

I wrote this a week ago, but I could write an eerily similar account today. The image above is a shot of my office for the day, at my favorite local coffee shop. It’s not styled or impressive, but I think it’s just right.  

This post was originally shared on my Instagram.