“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” – Vincent Van Gough

When my nieces were in middle school, they went to a charter school that had a lot of fundraising events. At one auction event they invited me to, the older of my two niece’s was selling raffle tickets that were $50 each. That was really expensive but I didn’t have kids at the time, it was for a school and of course, it was my niece selling them so I bought two. The clincher was that, as if often the case with raffles, you had to be present to win.

I think of that phrase a lot in parenting – you have to be present to win. When I bought the raffle tickets I knew I’d never make it to when the raffle was announced, I wasn’t the type of person to stay long enough even before I had kids. Now I don’t have any choice but to see to the end of each day with my kids but I can choose whether or not to be present.

I know that I must not the only parent that takes an extra long time to roll the garbage can to the curb because I’m pausing in the quiet and looking up at the sky. My central nervous system gets overloaded from the activity, amplitude of emotion and state of vigilance so it feels like I can’t stay present one more moment. I just want to check out because I’m spent. My daughter is a master of asking open-ended questions right before bedtime like “What mistakes have you made, Mama?” so my strategy is to just keep things simple with one or two word sentences so I can get to the finish line. But the other night, while I was racing to the end of the day so I could have some grown-up time where I could check out by having a glass of wine or mindlessly scroll through Instagram, something reminded me of “you have to be present to win.”

My daughter was snuggled next to me in bed as I was reading Harry Potter and it was a section where Hagrid was saying that his dad taught him not to be ashamed of who he was and she asked what ashamed was. I explained it’s that feeling of not wanting to talk about something because it makes you feel yucky inside. And she said, “Like Ahti [her aunt that used to nanny for us] taking a job and not being with us any more?”

[Wow, wow, wow] I told her that I was so proud of her for telling me that she felt that way. Then she asked why Ahti had to do it and I explained that it was because she found a perfect job. And she said, “It isn’t because we were too bad and she didn’t want to be with us?”

There are moments when I absolutely need to check out and breathe and I’m trying to learn to give myself grace when I do. But I’m also trying to practice staying present so that when I’m with my kids, I’m truly with my kids. Because unlike when I bought a raffle ticket for my niece’s school, I do care about winning the prize. Not two hours with a lawyer to do estate planning or a wine tasting with five friends, but to be the person my kids trust to help them unpack the burdens they don’t need to carry.