Some things a mom just needs for herself.
Come to think of it, everyone needs certain things for themselves that no one else touches, no else sees, no one else can access.
For me, it's my fine-point and chunky Sharpie markers.
I keep the fine-point Sharpies in a plastic cup on the highest shelf in a kitchen cabinet, right above the ice cream bowls, next to the dusty Margarita glasses. The chunky Sharpies hide in a Spongebob tumbler that has lost it's top.
Why are these markers so important to me? First of all, they're permanent (if it's not going to last, I'm not interested). Can you imagine what an almost two-year-old running around the house could do to leather couches or white walls with a teal Sharpie? I can, and it scares me. But I will not relinquish a favored posession because I am afraid of what could happen. That's silly living.
More importantly, my Sharpies represent the efficient me; filling my date book and checking things off as I go along, using the blue Sharpie. Writing on brown paper lunch sacks with the turquoise Sharpie in handwriting my kids recognize. Signing well thought out, professional letters and SASE's with style using the black Sharpie. Sending a 'just because' card to my husband's office with the crimson Sharpie, so he knows making him feel just as loved as the kids is a prioroty to me.
It's not surprising when I realize the colors of the Sharpie rainbow represent my moods as well. And they are tools for what I consider to be higher purposes in my domesticated/work-at-home lifestyle. These tools keep me proactive, progressing, pro-forward motion. They're small, they're inexpensive, not a bad habit at all, a minor indulgence for mom and only mom.
I don't sign interoffice memos anymore, it's been many years since I played with a Sharpie cap during business meetings. I don't keep regular business hours or necessitate a Staples online account for office supplies. My desk is my kitchen table most days and it takes a pounding underneath my laptop and smudged by various Gerber Graduates toddler meals.
But my fine-point and chunky Sharpies have followed me from doodling on my Chuckie Taylors in high school, to labeling term papers in college, to my brief professional career in event planning and catering all the way into stay at home/work at home motherhood which keeps me very busy, thank you very much.
Whatever it is I choose to do, wherever it is time takes me, I'm on a mission, armed with Sharpies so I can make my point, and leave my mark, colorfully.
Samantha Gianulis is an author, columnist and editor living in Southern California. To read more of Sam, log onto her website at www.samanthagianulis.com, or her blog, http://samanthagianulis.blog.com.
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