Perspective

You know that saying about not being able to see the forest for the trees? Or something? It has been whirring through my brain a lot lately. There are so many moments in my life where I've had to stop what I'm doing (or what I'm about to do) and ask myself if I'm paying attention to the right thing in that moment. I've always lived with such an "all or nothing" attitude - the curse of a perfectionist, I guess - and sometimes (read: often) get in my own way. I quite literally can't see the giant forest around me because I'm too busy locking eyes with individual tree trunks. 

....trees with eyes. Now there's a story. 

Anyway. I digress. 

Getting lost in the details is my specialty. In fact, I sorta kinda make a living out of it. But becoming a mama has rocked me so hard that this very trait, this very core trait that makes me who I am deep down, is slipping away. You can't be inundated with the details and the importance you give them when you're so tired you can barely see straight and your total purpose is to keep a tiny human alive and well.

Recently I was rocking my son to sleep in his room. As I sat there surveying his nursery, I realized that the Old Sarah would be losing her mind at its disorganization. Y'all who have known me a while would expect the room to be tidied down to the last detail, with everything in its rightful place. This couldn't be further from the truth. The closet is filled with clothes of all sizes and seasons, hung this way and that, with zero rhyme or reason. The crib is filled with piles of clean laundry - blankets, burp cloths, wash rags, swaddles, etc. The changing table is just thrown together with a random basket of stuff on its shelf to sort through blindly in the dark. You're getting the picture. It's absolute chaos. 

And I don't really give a shit. 

As some of you know, we had The Monster early. Very early, in fact. (A post for another day). We were completely unprepared, having just had a baby shower the weekend before his arrival. The house in general was in various states of disarray because we had new floors being installed, because, I mean, we had no ideaaaaa when we put that on the calendar that we'd be in the hospital already. 

Flash forward to his birth and the 9 week stay in the NICU. (Another post for another day). You'd think we would have spent that time whipping the house and his room into shape but no. That task was the furthest from our minds. We quickly compartmentalized everything in life and laser-focused on being there every day with him and holding each other up when we weren't. Organization be damned. 

Flash flash forward to bringing him home. He's been home now for about 2.5 months *WAHOO!!!!* and yet STILL I was rocking him to sleep in that hectic mess of a room.

And yet STILL I don't give a shit. 

The details in my life can wait. We are flying by the seats of our pants, hubby and me. But our baby is fed, clothed, bathed, and loved so so so fiercely and I don't care if that means a pack of diapers is spilling out onto the floor and his bathtub is on top of his dresser and we don't have pictures of him displayed anywhere yet. Right now, right here and now, we're just going to exist in these moments with him and let the rest sit a while. 

Motherhood is the forest, and I have no room for the trees.