A Sloth By Comparison

Five years ago today I posted this on Facebook: "Read my Mom's 1994 diary. It is so EMBARRASSING! She was mowing, weeding, taking care of her cows, cooking/baking every day, helping neighbors, visiting relatives, attending meetings, having company, cleaning house, etc. etc. every day.
By comparison, I am a sloth. I am the embarrassed one."

This made me think about a conversation my daughter-in-law, Shelly, and I had at Brynley's birthday party (where we also met Maverick for the first time). If you look closely at the picture, you can see that Shelly's arm is in a sling. The blue is an ice pack. She had just had shoulder surgery. We were comparing our shoulder surgery stories (mine was seven years ago) about how long it would take to heal, physical therapy, etc. I said I was glad mine was my left arm and not the right as hers was - both of us being right handed. She related how she had tried to get her house all cleaned ahead of the surgery, but hadn't gotten as much done as she thought she would. Then we started comparing ourselves to our mothers - how much better they were at 'doing what needed done, regardless of illness or injury' - and how poorly we measured up and how that made us feel less capable than them.
Which is when I asked, "Why do we do that? Why do we compare ourselves to our Mothers (or anyone else) and think we're failures if we don't get as much done as they do/did or even as much as we expect from ourselves?"  We were not able to answer the why questions that day; I doubt either of us ever will. Our mothers were raised in a different time. Their lives were very different than ours.

Somehow, Shelly and I (and probably millions of other women) need to learn to love and accept ourselves. Period. No excuses, no castigations. We are who we are. Let it be enough.

Here, again, is one of my favorite photos of Mom with her little herd of cows and calves.