As a mom I feel there is not always enough time in a day. There are days when my to-do list is longer than my grocery list, and I am constantly adding to it.
There are days when the dust bunnies in my living room seem to procreate faster than the ones in my backyard and there are days when I feel I should pull the flowers out of my garden and leave the weeds, as there seem to be more of those. And there are days I close my eyes and wish that one day I will win the lottery so I can hire a maid, chef and chauffeur and I can stop adding those jobs to my resume.
At times, I sit down to start a project and find myself hesitating on beginning. A fleeting moment of 'Is it worth it?' flickers through my mind and there I am, finding the thought of sticking bamboo under my fingernails more appealing. But only because it's frustrating when the time I have for myself feels miniscule and vanishes quicker than a plate of cookies at a cookie-aholic convention.
I want to focus on my projects for hours, days, weeks without once hearing the word 'Mom' scratching like fingernails on a chalkboard through my consciousness. But life doesn't work that way. It's a game of balance that may never be perfectly played.
"You hear people talk about balance", says award winning author Cassie Stocks, "I don't think I've come anywhere near it. I call it selective success and failure. It's like one day the house is clean but there's been no time for writing. Or the next day, I do my son's school stuff and I never got my dishes done. It's accepting that's ok. It can't be perfect every day."
Stocks, who resides in Eston, has juggled being a single mom, attending school full time - earning her degree in professional writing - and working full time, all the while using her extra minutes to successfully pen her debut novel, Dance, Gladys, Dance, published by NeWest Press.
The novel, which was released in May 2012, took approximately five years from the start to publication. But it's making sure she took those few minutes here and there that helped lead to her success.
"I really think it's like being an athlete. It's that process of training so that it's ready, even if you only have 15 minutes," she says. "I used to think I couldn't write without two straight days and now I can sit down and whip something out in 15 minutes and I think it's just from training."
In April of this year, Stocks won the Leacock Memorial Medal for Canadian humour writing which was accompanied with a $15,000 cash prize for Dance, Gladys, Dance. Not only was the win a huge accomplishment in the literary world but in the world of a busy mom.
Now, after being whipped through the whirlwind of media attention that followed the win, Stocks's life is slowly getting back to normal, giving her time to focus on her next novel which is tentatively titled The Amazing Adventures of Mattress Boy.
Stocks also says, "I think it's important that kids see that Mom is a person, Mom has things that are important to her and that you need 'that time.'"
In the long run maybe things won't be perfectly balanced but the dust bunnies and the weeds will quickly be forgotten, and 'that time' - the 15 minutes here and the 20 minutes there - will add up. When you look back, you will realize that they are those hours, days and weeks, just one minute at a time.
And you never know; your minutes will add up and you may one day be in Stocks's shoes - just not her army boots, because those she probably won't part with.
