My youngest daughter one day made an interesting observation. ‘Mama when we focus on something everything around it becomes blurry, our eyes have portrait mode.’ The next few minutes involved us drawing our attention in on some item and watching the world in the periphery blur and fade. We were actually observing our brains wonderful ability to disengage from those things that are not considered important in that moment.
This observation made me reflect on my own life, and how although we are promised the ability to have and do it all, we actually are incapable of paying adequate attention to all things at one time to make them ‘visible.’ Like many, I entered parenthood with an unshakable optimism of my abilities to juggle it all.
It was around a year off work after my eldest was born that I decided it was time to dust of my work boots and get back to it. It was refreshing having a routine. It had been at least a year since ironing any item of clothing, and the feel of crisp clothing, eyeliner and spray of Chanel was enough to make my heart leap with joy. The control over my time, the uninterrupted coffee breaks, the ability to use higher level thinking and to problem solve were intoxicating.
You can probably sense the imminent crash. It wasn’t long before the iron has disappeared, somewhere under 2 tonnes of washing. I had experienced coming home to five thousand rainbow coloured beads strewn across the wooden flooring (apparently in the name of creativity), my breasts were swollen with breast milk that I had no time to express during the work day, my mind would spin with the work commitments, and I had a one year old who I felt deserved my attention as soon as I stepped in the front door.
Food drops from my concerned parents almost became a daily occurrence. Probably in their desperate attempt to see us survive this period. The big stainless steel pots of hot curry, our saving grace. Like so many parents, with a multitude of commitments, we experience blurring of the periphery. Unfortunately as I learnt, we don’t work like that beautiful panorama shot that we envisaged. My life had become a portrait piece of my life as a young doctor, and the rest of my existence became predominantly a blur.
I had to make a decision about what I could hold in my own ‘portrait mode’ at this point in my life, and in order to do this I needed the love, support and confidence of those around me. For me personally at that time my line of focus became my daughter. Ten years of tertiary education was shelved for a later date, to the horror and confusion of people I knew, but what mattered was that those who were my tribe did not question my intuition of where I needed to be at that point in my life.
All of us on our own personal journey as we enter parenthood, need this support and love of our closest, no matter what our choices are, to hold in our field of vision that which brings us peace and joy, through a recognition of our inbuilt ‘portrait mode’.
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