Don't Object to the Mess

"When did buttoning things up become a sign of success?"

Mess Isn’t Failure

Words by Hannah Weil McKinley

I’m in the midst of some kind of mess—where routine feels flimsy and paper-clipped together. It’s fragile, superficial, even, while underneath the semblance of order my life might spill out and my brain might bubble over. In fact, if you could lift up the hood and check me out, I suspect the range of emotions and thoughts would overwhelm; they’d bowl you over with their sheer volume and intensity.

That’s a bit of the problem—I’m attempting to make some order of my life when everything feels equally big and important: My children and my work and my relationship and what I want out of all of it. And, it changes constantly; my mind flashing back and jumping ahead to try to anticipate how I’ll feel tomorrow, and then twenty years from now, too.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make the people I care about happy and then let that guide me forward—not, as my therapist has asked me, because I’m aiming to please them, but because it makes me genuinely happy to take care of them…

Then, I wonder if I’m doing enough to propel my own wants and needs forward—the stuff that took up residence in my heart long before I had a family, and I begin reshuffling and reprioritizing, making room for more of myself. And, making a mess as I go, passing up deadlines and letting things slide at home if I have to while I reinvest my energy elsewhere, in something that still holds meaning for me.

And still, I wonder if I’m doing it all big enough—not because I crave the credit or kudos, but because I’m worried that I’m letting my “what will everyone think of me?” tendencies hold me back, terrified of living too small, then wondering, what if? And panicking because it seems a finite window for women out there to make something we’re proud of. So, I’m messy and uncomfortable, straddling roles and extremes and hardly living in the middle in balance with any of it. But, I’ve also started to ask: When did buttoning things up become a sign of success? When did packaging it all up neatly mean we’ve won?