Does Balance Exist?
I recently listened to Shonda Rhimes’s Dartmouth College commencement speech, and there was one part I can’t stop thinking about. She said that whenever you see her succeeding in one area of her life, she’s absolutely failing in another. If she’s thriving at work, she’s missing bedtime. If she’s being a present mom, she’s behind at work.
My kids are a little bit older than bedtime routines, but nothing has changed. I am constantly pulled in different directions of success, but at the other end, failure.
I feel it every single day.
I spend my days juggling—family, teaching, coaching, listening, showing up, everybody’s emotions—and no matter how many balls I keep in the air, something always drops. It’s this constant, exhausting cycle of trying to do everything for everyone and realizing that even when I do, it still doesn’t feel like enough.
And if I’m being honest, I don’t like it.
I’d love to juggle less. I crave calm and quiet and moments that aren’t scheduled down to the minute. But I also feel passionate about so many of the things I’ve said yes to. I care deeply about my students, my athletes, my work, my friends, my family. But most of all, I care about the two people I brought into this world—and I know they’re not always getting the best of me.
That’s the part that hurts the most.
A year ago this weekend, that truth came crashing down in real time.
It was the Sunday of the long weekend. I knew it was a busy day but thought I had it under control—until I woke up to my daughter panicking because the road race we both thought started at 10 actually started at 9. It was 8:15. We quite literally raced to the start. I couldn’t even stay because I had to rush back to get my son to his football game—an hour and a half early.
I sped through getting all his gear on, dropped him at the gate, and flew back across town hoping to catch my daughter finishing her 10k. I was crying as I drove, beating myself up for messing up the start time, for not planning better, for just being that mom who’s always late and stretched too thin. I grabbed a coffee, tracked her progress on my phone, and made it to the finish line—only to get caught up chatting with an old student. You guessed it—I missed her crossing the line. No picture. No video. Was I even there?
I caught up with her after and handed her off to my best friend so I could rush back to my son’s game—this was all before I had to board a 12 p.m. bus to a volleyball tournament with my high school team. I got to the stadium just as the kids were taking a knee. It seemed like nothing out of the ordinary—until I couldn’t find #10. Then I heard someone shouting from the stands, “CAITLIN! IT’S CHARLIE!”
My heart dropped. I sprinted across the field, not knowing what I was about to find. He was lying there, frozen in pain—his arm broken clean through. He’d been on the field for five minutes without me. I was there, but I wasn’t there. And all I could think was, what if I had been ten minutes later? What if I had still been at the race?
As I climbed into the ambulance beside him, trying to steady both of our fears, I was also texting my assistant coach that I couldn’t make the tournament, throwing my car keys to a friend because the volleyballs were in my trunk, and arranging for another parent to pick them up. It was chaos. And it was too much.
That day was my breaking point—the perfect, painful snapshot of what it means to care so much that you end up stretched paper-thin.
And the truth is, nothing has changed, and I’m tired. Not just physically tired, but emotionally tired from the pressure of always doing. Doing for my kids, for my students, for my team, for my home—and somehow, it never feels like enough. There is no off switch.
I don’t have the solution. I’m very much a work in progress. I wish I could write this post and tell you I’ve figured it out—that I found the secret to balance, that I’ve stopped overcommitting, that I’ve learned to say no—but I haven’t. I’m still in the thick of it.
But maybe the first step is acknowledging it. Saying out loud that this is hard. That even when you love your life, it can still feel heavy. That you can adore your kids and still long for space. That you can be grateful and tired at the same time.
I don’t know how to fix it, yet. But I do know I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking adulthood means constant exhaustion or that loving others means losing yourself. I want to model something better.
Maybe that starts with admitting that we can’t do it all—and that’s okay. Maybe balance isn’t something we find; it’s something we redefine every day.
I’m learning. Slowly. Imperfectly. But honestly.
If you’ve been on this path and found a way through it—a mindset, a boundary, a behavior change that worked—please share. I know I’m not alone.
Your Friend,
Caitlin
