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This book captured, in a beautifully bound 249-page nutshell, my sincerest struggle since becoming a mother: what do I make time for? When time is such a rare commodity, and the way time is defined has so drastically changed, how do I spend it?
I want to make more of it. I want to be more efficient. I want to do everything with it. I want to be ALL THE THINGS.
I want to lean into an amazing career as an executive, I want to be successful and get big bucks and make a professional difference. I want to be asked to speak places because I know things.
But I also want to spend hours on the floor playing Chutes & Ladders. I want to comb over shells on the beach during the last hours of the summer afternoons.
I want to throw my phone in the ocean.
I want to respond to every single tweet immediately so I have more of a social platform so that my book deal can be revived so that I will matter more in the professional circles.
I want to spend time meditating.
I want to get a full 8-10 hours of sleep every night and wake up well-rested.
I want time, alone, in my house to have a cup of coffee and center my thoughts, my spirit, and my writing before the demands of my family start on me.
I want to take a hammer to my alarm clock.
I want to read good books and learn how to play tennis and get better at the guitar.
I want to spend all the time I can at my computer practicing my profession and being bigger, bolder, and more important.
I want to serve others in the community to be part of a larger world, serving a larger God.
And I don’t want to miss a damn minute of my sons’ lives.
So….
Right.
How does all that happen?
This has been my struggle since my first son popped his tiny, wrinkled hand into our lives.
I was hoping that The Fringe Hours, written by blogging maven Jessica N. Turner, would give me answers. This book is subtitled “Making Time for YOU.” I want time for me. And you, too.
But, ugh, it just made me feel MORE pressure. It had worksheets I should do (that I don’t have time to do). It tells the author’s personal story of simultaneously being a mom to young kids, writing a book, having an amazingly successful blog, doing all sorts of volunteer work, sewing and crafting, working a real job, and MAKING BANANA BREAD AT 6 AM. Sigh.
I want to make banana bread, but not if it requires me to set my alarm clock even earlier to make it happen.
I desperately want to be that woman who has it all, who does it all. I want the successful career and blog while also being a mom who is present and does messy art with her kids. But when does the time to sit and do nothing, to read a good book, come in?
The premise of The Fringe Hours is that there is a lot of wasted time in our lives. I agree. The time we spend in line, waiting, for example, could be spent with a good book. This, I agree with (unless, of course, you are standing in line with your 3yo and 6yo in which case this is all out the window and you are, instead, in sheer survival mode trying to keep them from wrestling each other in the line to the DMV counter).
I also passionately agree with Turner’s points about the waste of TV in our society. She asks us to answer some tough questions. Pages 167-169 in her book are the thoughts I have been trying to shove down my husband’s throat for years, yet I am not nearly as eloquent.
In short: when we complain about how little time we have for our hobbies, we need to step back and get control of our digital wasteland of existence. Turner writes:
…if you say you have no time for yourself but spend two hours a night watching television, there is a disconnect. Yet that’s exactly what happens with millions of people.
I realize that my review may sound harsh at first and that it is probably my own inner demons rearing their heads rather than a direct result of the book.
This book is certainly worth a read and I would hate to suggest otherwise. It is digestable in small snippets (like in a waiting room!), is well-written, easy to follow, and does offer some great reflections every single person – man, woman, wife, mother, father, single, Christian, none or all of the above – should spend some time on.
Turner is also very clear with her message that sometimes we need to ask for help. That’s tough for a lot of us to adjust to. In a raw moment in her book (p. 175) Turner confesses:
When I get overwhelmed, it is usually my fault.
Why, you ask?
Because I don’t ask for help.
There is also a lot of emphasis in this book on purposefully letting go of guilt and realizing that you ARE worth it. The first step in this epic time management struggle is stepping up, squaring off your shoulders, and declaring that your hobbies and your self-care deserve a spot on that To-Do List. That is a message that can’t be shared enough and it was wonderful to see Turner highlight that.
So there are a lot of good truths in this book.
But it just isn’t what I so hoped for.
I am craving a book that tells me how to a) not wake up at 5:00 am while b) spending the evenings connecting with my husband and c) going to bed by 10:00 pm and STILL having it all. I want that daily schedule for my sanity and exhaustion level, but I still want to be able to squeeze in a job, exercise, yoga, my kids, the world at-large, church, household chores, my husband, and, oh yeah, me (PS, not necessarily in that order).
It is hard, too, when the lesson is being given by someone who actually still does it all. ALL. Turner is a formidable role model in the world of Supermom. Although she eschews the pop culture image, she kind of is the image. In fact, her bio short on her website says that she is guilty of juggling too much and loving it. I think I am tired of juggling. In fact, the further I explore this parenting gig, the more I realize the juggle just isn’t worth it at all.
In the end, I guess, I feel like The Fringe Hours is just another BandAid to a bigger problem: that we all want it all and we aren’t even really sure what “all” means. We expect moms to do it all, to squeeze every single last minute out of every single last day so that we can check off everything from kids to marriage to household to career to self-care.
I want all the time and all the hours. But I also want to look back at my life and consider it well-lived, even if that means I didn’t ever surpass 2,000 Twitter followers or make that banana bread.
Are you done juggling, too?
Get your copy of The Fringe Hours: Making Time for You now!