I could at least have gotten a sash or a tiara or something
I am tired. So very tired.
And recently, I realized that while it is easy to chalk up fatigue to having small children, staying up late to watch TV, etc. etc., what is really making me tired is that somewhere along the way I seem to have appointed myself savior of the free world.
And there wasn’t even a ceremony, people.
Apparently I just woke up one day and decided, “The world will not function without my over-involvement/worry/assumption of responsibility for, well, everything.”
Don’t believe me?
I present to you the following partial list of the many things for which my brain has decided it must assume daily and vigilant responsibility:
– My husband remembering to take his sunglasses/keys/lunch/lip balm/court briefs/socks/children with him in the morning.
– Whether I say the exact right thing to a friend in need so that it will completely and instantly put her out of misery.
– Whether I say the exact right thing to my children so that they will instantly internalize and acknowledge my life lessons, or at least put me on equal footing with Daniel Tiger.
– My boarding group number on Southwest flights. (seriously, it is one minute after check-in – how am I in the C group again?)
– That the barista who hands me my morning cup of coffee understands that I am a good person, dammit.
– How well I sleep. (But who can sleep, with a list like this to tend to?)
– Whether my children eat all of their lunch at school, and not just those bags of tasty goodness called Sun Chips.
– How many dust bunnies inhabit the living room.
– How fat our cats have gotten (so, so fat).
– The size of our bank accounts (not nearly as fat).
– How well I succeed at this whole “anti-aging” business. (Having celebrated another birthday and aged another year, I vow to try harder next time.)
– Whether my children live or die. (I wish I was joking.)
– Whether this Facebook post receives a minimum of 689,253 likes.
– Whether my son loses another hat, my daughter another doll, the baby yet another shoe (sigh)…
…..and on and on and on……….
I wouldn’t be sharing these things with you if I knew I was alone.
I know that I am not.
We take on so very much, don’t we? The thing is, all of these things for which we assume daily responsibility and use to self-flagellate are mostly things in which…you know…
OTHER BEINGS ARE INVOLVED.
Try as I might, the kitties refuse to engage in their new jazzercize regimen.
My son sometimes eats the apple in his lunch box and sometimes leaves it there to rot, despite my best efforts at lunchtime mental telepathy.
I live with messy little people. We’ve covered that.
My husband is 36 years old and can fend for himself exceedingly well.
And, duh, it turns out that the barista isn’t really thinking about me after all. Not even close.
In fact, no one else really ever seems to notice that I have been chosen to save the world.
They’re way too busy self-flagellating.
So. I’ve been trying instead to use my time to do things that are a lot more fun, interesting, and engaging.
Like enjoy the drawing class I just signed up for.
And be with friends while letting them be themselves.
And, yes, sleep.
This is painfully slow going. I’m a little lost sometimes without my crown, and often forget that I am wearing it.
But I’ve learned to listen to certain cues – fatigue, tension in my jaw and upper back, the irritability I feel when things go awry – as a signal that maybe I am once again holding on too tight.
When I realize this, I loosen my grip and try as best I can to let the world figure out things for itself.
Except the whole Southwest boarding thing. That, my friends, I will never accept.
