NANOWRIMO DAY 7 – I’M MELTING

I need to vent.
I’m on my couch, planning next month’s blogs and social media posts. I started thinking I should add a fitness aspect to my month since I’ve started this low carb lifestyle.
But then I started thinking, “When will I have the time?!”
Let me run down my days for you.
I wake up at five. Yes, five in the morning. Because As a mom, I need time to myself and my husband stays up till eleven. So, mornings were my only choice. Walk Lucy. Make coffee. Write a blog. Market the blog. (This all takes: about an hour. Sometimes longer if my brain fights me.)
Then I need to get at least three miles of walking in. And a full workout. All before 645 when my husband and son wake up.
Husband is already in the shower so I hope I wasn’t too sweaty during my workout. Get dressed. Brush teeth. Get son dressed. Make his lunch. Get my snacks and lunch together. Walk Lucy again. Brain pills for me and son. Allergy pills until nature decides to stop trying to kill me. Multi vitamin because I’m forty five and that’s a thing I’m supposed to take. Out the door by 715.
The rest is work related and I won’t flood you with that. Home by 530. Walk Lucy. Talk to my parents on the phone. Dinner. Since I can’t eat a lot of what my family does, I need to cook my own. Husband handles dinner for the rest of the family.
After dinner around 630, I’m supposed to do the dishes and cleaning. I’m pretty much 50 50 on that. I need to make a video for one of the channels I have. That takes about an hour.
I still need two more miles of walking to hit my ten thousand steps every day. That takes about thirty minutes.
Now it’s eight. I would like to read but I can’t focus on my book. And Lucy needs to be walked again.
It’s 830, and I’m trying to figure out how I can better manage my time. So I start looking at ideas of prepping in the evening. I toy with the thought of waking up earlier and staying up later. But I’m so tired my face hits my phone.
It’s nine pm. Bedtime time for bed. Tuck son in. Fall face down into my pillow. All with the knowing I have to try again tomorrow.
This is just my weekday routine. Saturdays and Sundays are completely different. And none of the mental load stuff is here. Meal plan. Grocery. Laundry. Is today Wednesday? Did I put the cans by the road? Pay this bill. Dentist for this kid. Doctor for that one. Vet appointment. Don’t forget to order more meds. Mom can’t pick T Rex up so I need to go without lunch and pick him up and get back to work. Don’t forget to follow-up on the windshield repair. Why is the boy acting up in class? Is Bunny OK? Don’t forget to put in time to get the name change rolling. Did I order her birthday cake? Holy shit, we just bought a tractor and added $300 to my monthly payments.
These are just my normal thoughts. The intrusive ones are too much for me to put down. That’s a post for another time. Will I find the time? When will I have the time?
I just don’t know how to get more done. How to do more. How to be more. I’m burning my candle at both ends and melting in the middle.
I know I’m burning out. I take two week breaks from blogging. And I have no clue when I’ll get back into actually writing books again.
I’m so confused on how I’m supposed to do this. How do people do this?
I literally had to remind myself that I couldn’t quit my job today because of my mortgage and car payments. Plus, my boss is in her own world of stress right now and it would literally eat me alive knowing I added to it. It really is true. People may start a job for better opportunities or more money but it’s management that makes a person think twice about staying or quitting. I really do wish everyone had a Lilly in their life.
Oh and did I mention the fact that the holidays are like a month and a half away. And I have no clue how I’m going to make any of that happen. I’m glad these 3D printers I bought for the King may actually prove useful in the gift giving department. I hope these gifts are appreciated.
And that’s the other thing. Is it appreciated? Am I appreciated? All this work for what? All this stress but what’s the payoff? A tanked out credit score and no money left at the end of the bills. Holiday season in Wal-Mart is enough to put me in a panic attack. I have to admit I am so grateful we have a little Wal-Mart that is just for groceries and food and such. The big Wal-Mart is literally just a reminder of all the I wants and Gimme gimme gimmes. I usually love taking my kids shopping with me but not during the holidays. I’m not good at hiding the anxiety on my face. And they’re not good at hiding the disappointment when they’re told no or not right now.
Is everyone else on the laughing gas from the dentist? Everyone seems to be walking around without a care in the world. Like everything is fine and we’re not on the edge of economic or financial collapse. Like we’re not about to go to war. Like everything every Gen X kid grew up practicing for and watching movies about isn’t right around the corner. And I don’t think hiding under my desk is going to help this time.
Is it drugs? Is everyone hopped up like Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell? I’m so excited. I’m so scared. I’m always so damn scared. I’m scared I’m not doing enough. I’m not enough. I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I feel like everyone else in the world knows some big secret and they forgot to let me in on it. I feel like the meme where someone is drowning and even though they’re asking for help all they get is a high five and a You’re doing great.
And I’m scared because I don’t want to fail. I don’t want my family to fail and suffer or be inconvenienced because I can’t get my shit together. That’s one of the main reasons I stay at my job. I love my job. I do. But I stay because I want my family to have good things. Great experiences. Memories being made of family time. I want them to be happy and healthy and as normal as we can be for a family that does Rorschach testing on the blood stains left on a pillow after a nosebleed.
But seriously. Elon. If you’re reading this. Please make good on your promise to buy Coca-Cola and put the cocaine back in it. I mean, you bought Twitter, my guy. Help a mom out. We need all the help we can get. Some of us are living with our boomer parents who remind us of how much they got done when they were our age. The difference? Cocaine in the soda. I’m convinced of it. And maybe a house only cost ten thousand dollars. College was like five thousand. And a family of five could survive off one income. Hell, even Al Bundy could have a house in Chicago with two kids and a dog and only had one income.
I’m not wanting to be Donna Reed or June Cleaver. I just want to be able to put my head down at the end of the night and not think about all the ways I’m failing at being an adult let alone an adult in charge of kids and other adults.
Why is this shit so hard? I mean I know we grew up hearing life isn’t fair and life is hard. But damn. Something has to give.
And don’t give me that we all have the same twenty four hours in a day bullshit. No. We don’t We’re also not all in the same boat. We may be in the same ocean but some have inflatable rafts and vests while others have yachts. The struggle aint the same for everyone.
And I know it’ll be different. Once Bunny moves out. Once HayHay moves out. Once T Rex moves out. Then I’ll have a whole new set of things to worry about. And I’ll probably wind up being that retired wife that does everything for her husband. Because I’m that person.
I’m the caretaker. I have to take care of it because if I don’t it doesn’t get done. But is that really the end of the world?
I mean that may be coming but I’m pretty sure it won’t be because I didn’t pack an apple in my son’t lunch one day. And that all just put a lot of things into perspective for me.
See, I’m real good at dispatching the advice out to others. You know, the whole you can’t pour from an empty cup stuff. The problem is I don’t listen to a damn word of it myself. I’m very good at the platitudes of self care but when it comes to following through with it, well, I just don’t have time for that.
I think I need a me in my life. I need someone that sounds like they know what they’re talking about. A sage and wise woman. Maybe I should record myself and listen to it. Or talk to myself in the mirror.
Or maybe Elon Musk needs to follow through and put the cocaine back in the soda.
Either way, it’s a win win I guess.