I’ve run myself into the ground again.
I don’t know what my problem is, but I have this disorder or something where I keep taking on way too many things.
I totally know better.
I just finished the Boston Marathon a little less than a month ago, and rather than give myself a break, I jump right into something else.
Just a week or so ago, I offered to start running an online yoga group. For free. You know, because I have so much extra time.
I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking with that one.
I threw a fundraiser party this weekend at my house in the middle of the three day swim meet.
It was a pretty big flop.
I wonder why.
I’ve gotten right back into the habit of working every day, even on Sundays, and working at night after the kids go to bed.
I’ve been stress eating and I’m so tired that I have very little concentration and I’m completely inefficient.
I am not connecting with my kids or my husband.
Or myself.
I get these pretty good ideas (well, I think they are good, anyway) in my head, but I have been, so far, incapable of telling myself that they will have to wait until I have time for them.
And then I rush into something and I’m gung ho for the exciting beginning part, whatever it is, and then I run out of gas and don’t totally finish because some other idea flies into my head and instead of finishing what I’m doing before taking something else on, I just start spinning one more plate in the air.
It’s insane.
I am not taking very good care of myself, and I know from plenty of previous experiences that this is only going to lead to bad things.
So I’ve been sick for a week and I haven’t been able to shake it and I worked all weekend and we had like a hundred baseball games and the whole weekend was a logistical nightmare and so today I decided I was taking the night off of practice and all the kids were too, and we were going to have a calm night without any running around and we might even eat dinner together and everyone would get into bed early and we’d all get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow we’d be a little refreshed and ready for the craziness of the rest of the week.
At 4:15 I loaded everyone in the car. I had to pick up Number 5 from her after school activity and then pick up Number 4 from her after school activity and then I was going to drop Number 2 off at work, come home, put on my pajamas, and have a nice, relaxed night.
I got Number 5.
Then I got Number 4.
And as she came out of the door of her school she yelled,
“MOM! DID YOU FORGET ABOUT MY BAND CONCERT TONIGHT??? I HAVE TO BE THERE AT 6:45!!!”
Mother. Fucker.
I had no idea there even was a concert.
Another slap in the face telling me I’ve got to slow down and prioritize.
Time to take care of myself.
Time to clear the plate of a few things.
And I’m putting it out there right now. In writing.
As badly as I know I will want to, I will not take on any more new and major projects in 2016. No more fundraising events.
I’m almost halfway through the year and I have too many unchecked boxes on my list to add any new ones onto it.
I’m not ready or willing to acknowledge that I can’t do it all.
But I do think I’m ready to admit that I can’t do it all right now.
Hey Susie, just reading all the stuff you have to squeeze every day in stresses me out! I don’t know how you do it. Could you maybe lose a few of the extra curricular activities for the kids? It must be stressful for them too sometimes with life being so hectic.
Good luck! I love your blog 🙂
A lovely quote that I read somewhere – ‘you can do anything – but you can’t do everything’.
All in good time. 🙂
Oooh, I like this a lot!
Hugs to you… You absolutely should say no and focus on your daily life. Make a list of all your good ideas for another time, in your journal. That way, when the kids are grown…lol…you can do one or two of them a year. As much as we (women, moms, teachers, etc) feel we can/should say yes to all, we should say no to many with a smile. No guilt.
The problem is that I have to say no to myself. It’s not really coming from anyone else!
Thank you! Tysm for writing this! Just about every day I read another article or blog post about how we aren’t doing enough, or how we can fit more into our daily schedule. . If “we just…” (fill in the blanks with, organize better, manage our time more efficiently, prioritize, sleep more or better, eat healthfully. . Etc etc etc). It’s total bull shit! Now, that being said, I’m a type A personality that has continuously fallen into the “be more productive” trap over and over and over… and I still do. .. every damn day. .. problem is, about 5 years ago (and im not looking for grace, or pity or anything like that), I was struck down by a rare illness that left me temporarily paralyzed, hospitalized for over two weeks, and permanently changed. At the time, I was a single mom, of two, one with severe debilitating mental and educational issues. He had been misdiagnosed over and over..I was working full time at home, in the summer, with both of them home, as an accountant. .I put in 10 hrs a day to clock 6 most days. Add in my ex who left me with a ridiculous mortgage and about $120,000 in other debt. I thought I could do it all, after all, mind over matter, correct? That’s how my brain is wired. My mind was in over drive all the time and I had lost 60+ lbs in months. At 113 lbs (I’m 5’9″), I believe my body basically had a nervous breakdown. When I finally got home my body had changed drastically. I needed to sleep 6 hrs some days in addition to night sleep. I couldn’t think straight or process info, and eventually lost my job. I tried to eliminate anything unnecessary from my life and fighting ocd, but being physically unable to keep up was devastating. I learned how to ask for help. It sucked. I waited as the drs tried to figure things out, was told I’d be myself in 6-12 months, to later be told this WAS myself from now on. Now, to make things extra confusing. ..I got back with my kids father (not the ex mentioned), and became pregnant about a year after getting “sick”…I still had no good answer for what happened to me, but all testing etc was put on hold. That pregnancy was the worst for me physically and mentally. (Hubby) had had a vasectomy, so this miracle child, was a blessing in disguise, but it didn’t physically make things any easier. I had some relief from certain symptoms later in pregnancy, but 3 months after having #3, I was stopped in my tracks, adding in RA, and later some other crap. Through all of this, my mind set had gone back to”my normal”, do it all, no matter what the cost. I was nursing my lo, 20 times a day most days, getting 3-6 hrs sleep max, and was fighting my body, teeming myself “if I could just”… again, fill in the blanks. Through all this, I was fighting active foreclosure (I actually wrote to you with info at one point), hubby was in and out of work, and I was unable to. Around lo’s second b day, I was given hope as I started methotrexate treatments. It was a nightmare, I found or a few months later, I was actually allergic and having adverse rare reactions to the meds. Six more months of garbage and suffering down the tubes. During that time, (since lo was born), I had opened an eBay store, learned or tried to learn a new business, and stay my own blog. I don’t know how to give in, or quit. I tried meds, special diets, exercise, name it I’ve done it or something similar. Finally last summer I was given a med that worked. Slowly but surely, I noticed differences…I threw myself back into trying to do everything all by myself. I turned my good days into crazy, frantic, “try to fix everything that was wrong from the past 3+years all at once” mode. Last December I started getting crude abdominal pains, comparable to back labor. I was again hospitalized, and released with no diagnosis. I finally saw a good dr, who found my tubes blocked, and scheduled surgery for late January. They were checking for endometriosis and REMOVING my tubes. Surgery went well and no endometriosis thank god! A few weeks later, I started getting sick and thought I had a stomach bug, or infection. Turns out I was pregnant again! You should hear me try to explain this to people. I hear a lot of “wait, what? “… ya I got pregnant, the one time I let my hubby near me lol, the day I found out I was having the surgery, 8 days before the operation, and it didn’t show up on the test. That was a shock to everyone, including my Dr’s, and caused upheaval here at home. We were “done”, but apparently someone wasn’t done with us. Thank god everything was/ is, ok, but this meant stopping most of my meds, and going back physically to the me who can’t do much, or as much as I think I should. My brain is still stuck, and im desperately trying to re-prioritize while preparing for #4. I’ve read, and printed hundreds of articles, books and “how to” charts, trying to make sense of what’s going on. I try to give myself grace, while holding on to the idea, that after baby, I’ll be able to get back to doing things, but I also know what life with a 3 yr old and newborn can be like. Soooo, sorry for the super long post, but I haven’t been able to say this, like this, too anyone. So thank you, thank you for showing us that everyone has limits, and there’s a difference, and balance between trying to do everything, and doing nothing. Learning my limits, im working on that.
Yes!!! I think all women tend to do this. We want to do it all, be it all… But we can’t. And we have to remind ourselves of that. Thank you for this post; I’ve been staying up late working, missing out on sleep and then being too tired to pay much attention to my son. I need to step back, take a minute and SLOW down.
Just started my own blog. Love reading yours!!! I feel overwhelmed all the time and I don’t do have experience the stuff you do. How do you do it? Can’t wait to read more!
Thank you for saying these things. I can SO relate to this. Serendipitously, I just saw a quote attributed to Jen Hatmaker that applies. “If it’s not a HELL YES, it’s a no.” I feel like that should become my mantra! Hugs to you as you work on balancing things out.
Take it easy on yourself. This is an insane time of year, especially with multiple children. We have 5 and it’s crazy – you have more so life is even crazier. After the end of the school year things will settle just a little bit. You’re doing a great job.