NOT-SO-MAGICAL V.
HELLO, I’M THE NOT-SO-MAGICAL V.
“Viktorija, how do you manage to do everything?”—I read on the blue screen.
“And you even look so happy…”—I get an echo of agreement.
It so happens that I read this sentence on my phone at the exact moment I haven’t even escaped my morning robe yet, sleeves rolled up, chasing through the corners of the house with a broom.
Glancing at the stroller where My is napping, listening with one ear to what’s happening in the older kids’ rooms, seemingly “accidentally” tuning in to their remote classes.
I shrug.
Look around.
Breathe in.
And laughing at myself in the hallway mirror, still keeping the message in mind, I blush:
“Right now I look like a disappointed housewife”—but shaking off that “stuck-on” status and embarrassed by the little “mess” I see, I quickly dash to the wardrobe and swap the robe for something more decent.
Step harder, life—I won’t fall behind.
Lately, I keep receiving your letters, where you tell me about the “joys” of motherhood and juggling tasks, and ask for the “recipe” for how my life ended up so white, so bright.
When there’s so much darkness around, why is everything white in my world?
Let me reassure you:
“Saints don’t cook pots”…
I’m simple.
A woman with feet on the ground.
A daughter.
A wife.
A sister.
A promoter of my own business.
And… also.
A mom cubed.
Currently living the charm of first- and fifth-grade remote learning.
“Mom, can you explain? Mom, I don’t understand. Mom, how does this work?”—buzzing from different corners of the house.
I can help the first-grader with writing Lithuanian letters, but in fifth-grade math, in many cases, I raise the white flag and admit defeat.
I also have My, a month old, in my arms, whose tummy adventures have begun.
And if the older kids today invited me to play the game “My Day,” My added “My Nights.”
And also… I have a teenage-aged dog.
Who just waits to grab anything left out of place.
Maybe it’s not so bad—order must exist.
In short, it’s fun 24/7.
Am I a “turbo” woman, born under a lucky star?
No.
I haven’t packed wings under my clothes.
I don’t soar on rainbow paths.
I don’t drink swan milk for lunch.
I don’t worship unicorns.
I don’t live in a greenhouse.
I stopped blindly believing in fairy tales along with the black-and-white horses of my childhood.
It rains here too.
We have storms.
And piles of dirty laundry regularly appear.
I don’t have perfectly clean houses all the time.
It gets dusty.
Messy.
And “crumpled.”
Sometimes I don’t manage to wash my hair.
And somehow… for one reason or another, I have to skip a visit to the manicurist.
Just recently, such a “skip” happened:
“Did your nail fall off??”—Do lifts his wide, frightened eyes when a layer of gel peels off my nail after prolonged wear.
“Noooo”—I show him my nail, I have nails… and I usually don’t lose them.
At the worst times, pimples appear.
Sometimes I gain a little weight.
Sometimes I don’t like myself.
I get headaches occasionally.
And I don’t always shoot fireworks of an impressive mood.
I get tired.
My kids sometimes get sick.
Sometimes they’re grumpy.
Sometimes school doesn’t go well.
Sometimes they frown at the home-cooked meals I prepared with care.
I roll up my sleeves every day and spin around the pots.
I tango around the house holding the vacuum or broom “by the arm.”
I wash.
Take out stains.
Patch accidental holes.
Fold hundreds of little pants and socks.
Run to buy clothes that are too small or accidentally ripped.
And again shoes that are outgrown.
Lost gloves.
I change diapers.
Sometimes very many times a day.
I console myself that even in our childhood, they didn’t exist.
And “diapers” had to be washed by our parents when we fell asleep.
I sometimes don’t sleep at night.
Sometimes because I’m bonding with My, sometimes because I can’t sleep from a flood of thoughts.
My phone buzzes almost without stop.
Sometimes with joy.
More often: “V., something happened, what do we do?”
I am not always stylish.
Dressed up.
Made up.
Composed.
Sometimes my arms drop.
I sometimes cry.
And people treat me unfairly.
I make mistakes.
I get painful lessons.
I learn.
Sometimes I “step on the same rake” again.
Even though I firmly believe that only failures behave like that.
Every day I “juggle” all human problems.
Above my head, the sun doesn’t shine any brighter.
And the grass on our side of the fence is certainly not greener…
Over the years I’ve learned one thing:
NOT TO GET UPSET OVER SMALL THINGS.
And not to get mixed up in the terms:
“Solvable problems are not problems. They are just temporary inconveniences.”
When it gets hard and I feel the dam of tears starting to build… you know which thoughts I shake myself with?
I AM HEALTHY.
And everyone I love most IS HEALTHY.
After My was born, we spent his first days in the hospital room, from whose window we could see the Oncology Institute building.
When I would sit at night to feed him, I looked at the unblinking lights in the round building before my eyes…
and felt happy.
FINAL:
When I lift my eyes to the sky and see that it’s gray,
I’ve learned not to shout that it’s going to rain.
People are not stupid.
They see forecasts on their blue phones.
And they know how to lift their noses.
But in that cloudy sky…
You can see brightly feathered birds diving with joy.
And if you want really badly—through the “basement” clouds, a “heart” shape starts forming in your eyes.
It begins to rain.
Like for everyone.
So it is for me too.
It’s just a matter of perspective what we see around us:
Whether puddles in the yard… huddled passersby and the gray, clouded sky.
Or enjoy the tapping of rain on the windows and think… could it get any cozier?
If you recognized yourself in this “scribble,”
I’m glad.
We have a lot in common.
Not-so-magical,
V.
