Imperfect perfect life.

I work full time outside our home. Even though we have children, a fairly sized house in constant need of cleaning and garden there was never any doubt or discussion whether I should stay at home or not.

My husband got a full time job outside our home, but he`s on a rotation: two weeks away from home working offshore, and then four weeks at home... during those four weeks he does a bit of work for his employer, but he also does quite a bit of charity work, he jogs and he reads quite a bit. All these activities take about a full working day, every day. (A full working day in Norway is usually 8 hours, minus 1/2 hour lunchbreak. A full week is 37 1/2 hours.)

We are far from poor, but we need two incomes to make the wheels go round the way we want them to.

We have plans for how to help and spoil our boys, help them start their adult life and get a comfortable life. We have a number of donations we choose to keep up. And we live! In short: we have a good life.

We actually like working as well. It is fun, challenging and fullfilling to use your abilities to something else than clean and tidy up what will be unclean and scattered about within an hour.

It is lovely to see other adults. I so cherish the small breaks when I hear conversations about other things than what happens in the wonderful world of young boys. I don`t even have to participate! Just to hear somebody mention a world chrisis and give their opinion on fashion is like balm to my soul. It gives me the extra boost I need to both smile and be patient and listen to my little miracles.

We do a LOT of LAUNDRY. We spend a lot of time helping and listening to homework. We wash a lot of dishes. We clean the house and vacuum and take the garbage out. We explain and listen and say "no" so many times every day it is hard to remember how to say "yes". We attend partents` meetings and attend community voluntary work and buy groceries. The amount of milk and bread we bring into our house every week is unbelievable.

We try to leave the house tidy when we go to bed, and yet, in the morning, the house looks like a miniature tornado hit sometime during the night while I was asleep.

There is an awful lot to do in our house every day. Most of it noone will ever notice or even think must be a time consuming chore.

We cope, but it is an ongoing race against what people would say if they happen to drop by.

I think it`s fair to say we are happy, but our greatest fear is that some aunt, or other relative, should drop by. Someone likely to tell our mothers about the true state of our house.

Women`s liberation has been good to us women. Depending on your goals in life, Norway is probably one of the best countries in the world to live in.
But... having the opportunity to fullfill yourself has a price.
There is no possible way to be excellent and on the alert on everything.

I am me, an individual with independent views, opinions, feelings, needs and abilities. In addition I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a collegue, a careerwoman, a housewife, a friend, a pet owner, a wannabe writer and I do not wish to eliminate any of those roles. I want to hold them all; more than that: I need them to be and feel like a full person. If I had not known them all, they would not have already been a part of who I am, and I could be a full person without them... I don`t know, but I need to be everything I am.

Still I am fully aware that to have these demands to my life creates a big gap between what is desired and what is possible to achieve.
Leaving the house to do a full time job outside our home leaves a full time job at home open.
Many of my friends depend to a large extent on grandparents. I don`t have that luxury, but I understand that is a huge load off the heavy weight of being present.
Grandparents can be wonderful listeners and audience and guides to the many mysteries in life.

I try to do well on all arenas, but I know I don`t succeed much. My biggest worry is I will reach the point of regret some time in the future, of what I don`t know, but there is a good chance I will have them.
It is perhaps particularly hard to agree I can`t have a perfect home the way I want it to be perfect. There is no way I can do what my mother used to do when she was younger and an at home mom. I made a choice and got myself a career and a family. I just never thought getting it would make me feel like such a failure.

My comfort, though, is that we are perfectly happy there, even though it is far from perfect. Or perhaps living a happy life embracing all of our perfect imperfections (like the song says) is a far better way to put it.