For the last twenty years I have lived in a very small house with many people. Generally this situation works fine. We all get along and there are many places that people can go to be alone. There is the walking spot, a path made in the woods from people pacing on it over the years. And there is also the small bedrooms that people have. However there is also a lot of chaos.

It would be hard for there to not be some chaos when everyone is home. But generally that is only in the evening and on weekends. It has been hard for me to find a peaceful place in and among the chaos since I am the mom and everything seems to involve me, even when I don’t want it to.

I don’t do well in unrelenting chaos. I don’t think anyone does. But lately it has seemed to bother me more than usual. I find myself more depressed or trying to escape more often than I did before. And that is not good.

I have started to the to do list again to keep me on target. I have my daily and long range goal list. When I feel overwhelmed I fall back on my lists and the order that they bring to my internal self. I do not know how much order they bring to the external world I live in, but my internal world feels better. My lists are usually long and detailed. This way I get to cross a lot of things off the list and feel like I am doing something toward creating peace. There are things like; get up in the morning, make bed, have breakfast ( this last one is a big one since I usually forget to have breakfast and my daughter spends the morning harassing me until I do eat.) this way I can check things off and feel like the day was successful. When I get past my overwhelmed state my list tends to shrink back to the ordinary things.

Making peace with chaos and finding a peaceful place in chaos is difficult. Lately I am just trying to make a peaceful place. It is harder than it seems.