Do you have things you know you could be doing, should be doing, would be doing if you have the gumption to get up off your ass and do them? I do. I stood in the middle of my kitchen last night, surrounded by dishes and dim light and dirty curtains and told myself I needed to be completing my application to be a speaker at an upcoming conference. I made myself a drink instead. I missed the deadline. I need to wash the curtains and the dishes and probably change a light bulb. Knowing these things need doing have no control over my seeming inability (refusal?) to do them. The curtains irritate me because they’re dirty. Yet they’re still hanging there. The dishes irritate me because they need to be washed before I can even cook and yet I’ll wash what I need, use them, then be right back where I started. I care, but I can’t make myself do.
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I have a tendency to give excellent advice to others but I seem unable to apply these same suggestions, admonitions, or gentle nudges to myself. When you feel overwhelmed, how do you climb out of it, what’s the first step? And by overwhelmed I mean by sheer ordinariness: dishes, laundry, groceries, mail, the sex you planned out so well in your mind four days ago and looked forward to but now it’s four days later and each night you’ve passed out soon after the kids because you are tired, so very tired. And probably tipsy.
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Yoga has always helped me. I tend not to practice, though, because to practice I’d have to carve out time and purposely change out of my robe and into something more conducive to downward dog. It’s odd. I crave, genuinely crave the peace and mental stability and calm that yoga provides and yet I will opt for bed or a book. Or vodka. I care, I do. But how do I also act on doing the things I need to do? Regularly? Because telling myself what I should be doing doesn’t make me do it, even if I want to do it.
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My robe. I went through a few pieces of clothes from the floor yesterday and determined most need to go to Goodwill. I put my robe in the bag. It’s only two years old and has been my best friend the entire time. But, it’s time for it to go. It is a hindrance, an eyesore, no matter how comfortable it is. It became my crutch. The signal that mommy is tired, wife is disinterested. It’s time to change the signal.
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Lists. I like lists! I am awful at lists, both making them and crossing things off of them. But, I still feel like I need them. I need to list out what needs to be done in the extensive cleaning and reorganization of my bedroom. I will spend more time on the list than the actual cleaning, though. How do you get past the want of change and move into the effecting of the change? I’ve read about making a plan (aha! A list!) and simply sticking to it. I can see how that would work with a person who sticks to lists, but WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE ME?
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I plan to at least try. I’m going to try to do the things that are good for me. I’m going to try to not do the things that are bad for me (but that might, at the time, also feel pretty damn good). I’m going to try to remind myself of how I want things to be: clean curtains, dishes done, clothes I don’t wear gone. And maybe buy some vitamins.
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I am so fucking hormonal I could scream. There is a special place in hell for the person who thought that mother/daughter synchronized menstrual cycles was a good idea. I am teary and sad because the girls are gone until Thursday but I am grateful and enjoying the semi-quiet that their absence produces (semi because the boy is, well, not quiet.) I cannot wait to hear about their trip and wash their hair and look into their faces and remind them that they have homework packets to complete BECAUSE I AM THE FUN MOM.
