Space Rocks and Broomsticks
I don't consider myself a person who necessarily "has a life". I exist in a series of monotonous routines, that usually satisfies me. I've been this way most of my life. I'd go to the same old bars and the same old diners and walk the same old streets while listening to the same old music. It is probably this way for billions of people on Earth, throughout time. For better or worse, I've never been one to want to achieve some fantastical goal to set me above humanity.
I am really trying to nail the point home here that there is nothing I really do on a daily basis to set my life apart or above anyone else's.
That being said, it is such a conundrum to me that within the most often unchanging routine and malaise of my life there seems to be such a surplus of duties, responsibilities and requirements that I am feeling absolutely overwhelmed by this morning.
I've got my tasks from the second I wake up. Feed the cats inside, feed the foster cats, make our breakfast juice, shower (and shave every three days), feed the birds, feed the fish. If it's Monday I do the laundry. If it is a tolerable Monday I fold the clothes after and put new sheets on the bed. If it is a bad Monday, maybe the laundry gets folded Tuesday. If Sunday is not busy, maybe the bed gets redone then.
Little blips on the radar are usually survivable. Mega blips can throw an entire week off. It happens. But usually we are mundane, day in and day out, and that suits me.
It feels anything like that though the past few weeks. This week especially just feels suffocating. Going to the Meat Packer today feels like a mega blip, though I raced to get the laundry washed in the past 24 hours. I unloaded all the BIL's plants out of the Jeep this morning, but how long will they sit in the garage before being dealt with. And speaking of the garage, it is a huge mess with some Halloween stuff still not put into the attic. There's bird seed spilled on the floor, new bags that need to be opened and put in containers. Folding tables that may or may not go back downstairs. The workbench is just covered in junk. Oil in the receptacle that needs to be put back in the used bottles and brought to the store for recycling.
I suppose I could clean it when I am off next week, but what about the impending doom of Christmas. When will we do all that. In my philosophy, when Christmas decorating becomes an obligation, it no longer serves a purpose. Some years there is plenty of time to do it. This year it feels like there is none. We can't do it beforehand because we are hosting Thanksgiving, so it is like an unwritten rule we can't. But if not before, then when? The Sparrow works Friday and Saturday after. It makes my whole week off a waste if I can't tackle this stuff, but I also would like the help and the Sparrow would like to participate in it.
We've got these foster kittens going in to get fixed tomorrow, which is a whole stress in and of itself. I need to be at the place by 7:30 which means I need to be out the door before 7 with them. They won't be happy and they'll need to be picked up Wednesday, all freaked out and stitched up with cones around their necks no doubt. So there will be ongoing stress with that.
While they are gone the back garage really needs to be swept up and cleaned. There's also two big plants that will probably be coming back in even though I was almost resigned to let the die outside. And the sensors on the garage door itself need to be replaced, and we are only guessing that is the issue with the door not closing all the way. All stuff that needs to be done within 24 hours, all while hoping there's no major work issues tomorrow, though I do have the weekly call about this stupid email migration.
There's the stress I keep carrying on about with Thanksgiving itself and the bullshit with my family. Really a nonissue of sorts, since we have already decided to just stay home. But, that doesn't matter when it comes to my mother and her years of manipulation and guilt. The inability to have adult conversations and the overwhelming inference in her every breath and throat-clearing that *I* am the one who "destroyed" the family.
We were talking extensively with the Sicilian at our get together Saturday about our mutual issues with our toxic families. It doesn't matter if nothing is said when it comes to these people, silence itself is its own weapon and tactic. So the burden of all that is on my shoulders.
We have this stupid Christmas gift project we need to work on, that the Sparrow has been bringing up over and over again for months. I personally feel it is just too much with how life is right now, but he gets on a dick about these things and he will just do them by himself like he did last year. I just think it's too much. Maybe some day when there aren't all these other responsibilities it'd be nice to sit down on a quiet Sunday and work on a project. But, they've become like obligations and not fun, like with our postcards. It's been fun, but the last couple months has just felt like too much.
I haven't even done any more postcards/greeting cards for that senior home letter writing campaign things I was involved in. I just have not had the time or mental capacity to do it. I bought a shit ton of Christmas cards last year that I was going to write to donate to one of those military card writing programs. Haven't written a single one. And we are close to the point where it is just too late for this year.
I have no life, yet it seems there's no time to do anything.
The check engine light on the Jeep keeps turning off and on with the weather. I got the replacement thermostat, but that's a whole project in itself. Involving draining the radiator and undoing hoses. A big deal even if it is not complicated. The Jeep itself has needed a tire rotation for six months. When will I find time to do that?
This new couch needs to be ordered. Have we given ourselves enough time to think about it or are we rushing this. And when it gets here, how the hell are we going to keep the cats from destroying it.
I've got bags and bags of stuff we've bought to store in our backup pantry downstairs. Most has been catalogued, but it's all sitting down there needing to be put on the shelves. And next to that, all the Halloween totes that were brought downstairs but I didn't put in place because I wanted to move the Christmas stuff where the Halloween stuff was and get everything away from the areas beneath where the upstairs bathrooms are, just because of paranoia and water leaks. There's also boxes of CDs and Blurays down there that need to be stored somewhere properly. Boxes of CDs and movies that need to go to the resale shop. Other boxes of stuff that have needed to go to Goodwill for months.
Should I mention the mulch pile? The bird feeders needing to be cleaned. The fish tanks too. The inside windows needing to be weather-sealed for the season. Leaves need to be blow off the roof and really the whole lawn just needing another once over with the mower that takes 45 minutes to start every time I need it. The snowblower should probably be pulled out and started just to test. Christmas lights outside need to go up, or not.
A lot of this, if not most, falls on me because the Sparrow is at work all day. He isn't feeling the same pressure over it all as I am, which is why he goes on about the little projects and gets frustrated when I don't want to deal with them. I suppose this is just like some housewife syndrome in me. I am here all day doing stuff, he is oblivious to it so he doesn't realize how completely worn out I am every day.
All the shopping, making sure we have litter and cat food and cleaners and salt for the water system (though he did do that himself last week), rotating the pantry downstairs, etc etc... I am trying to keep up with it all, and all these other little things are just compounding on the routine making me feel manic today.
The doom of work, ever-present through it all. It is a yearly tradition going on 16 years or so now that the week of Thanksgiving I get some kind of fisting. So I am stressed about the "what ifs" and "maybes" of next week, when nothing may happen at all. It is almost guaranteed it will, as it *ALWAYS* does. I hear from the Woman's Clinic about three times a year, and it is almost assured one of those times is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving... usually with an issue she's sat on for weeks and just not said anything about in all that time.
Too much stress, almost entirely over stuff I cannot even control. I just feel like I am on a rocket going through an asteroid field and getting dinged and zinged from every angle by space rocks. If I complain about this to the Sparrow his response is "well, we can just work on stuff during the week when I get home"... again, not getting the fact I've already been working on stuff around the house, in between actually working, all day.
And then we feel guilty on the weekends when we do go shopping in the mornings, or get breakfast/lunch, or if we lounge on the couch. Because we feel like we should have been using the day off to *do* something productive. But even when we actually do it only seems prove to us there's no time because of how little we can get accomplished because so many of our projects are longterm and there's no instant gratification. Add to it that time just seems to be racing by, faster and faster with each year.
I am really trying to nail the point home here that there is nothing I really do on a daily basis to set my life apart or above anyone else's.
That being said, it is such a conundrum to me that within the most often unchanging routine and malaise of my life there seems to be such a surplus of duties, responsibilities and requirements that I am feeling absolutely overwhelmed by this morning.
I've got my tasks from the second I wake up. Feed the cats inside, feed the foster cats, make our breakfast juice, shower (and shave every three days), feed the birds, feed the fish. If it's Monday I do the laundry. If it is a tolerable Monday I fold the clothes after and put new sheets on the bed. If it is a bad Monday, maybe the laundry gets folded Tuesday. If Sunday is not busy, maybe the bed gets redone then.
Little blips on the radar are usually survivable. Mega blips can throw an entire week off. It happens. But usually we are mundane, day in and day out, and that suits me.
It feels anything like that though the past few weeks. This week especially just feels suffocating. Going to the Meat Packer today feels like a mega blip, though I raced to get the laundry washed in the past 24 hours. I unloaded all the BIL's plants out of the Jeep this morning, but how long will they sit in the garage before being dealt with. And speaking of the garage, it is a huge mess with some Halloween stuff still not put into the attic. There's bird seed spilled on the floor, new bags that need to be opened and put in containers. Folding tables that may or may not go back downstairs. The workbench is just covered in junk. Oil in the receptacle that needs to be put back in the used bottles and brought to the store for recycling.
I suppose I could clean it when I am off next week, but what about the impending doom of Christmas. When will we do all that. In my philosophy, when Christmas decorating becomes an obligation, it no longer serves a purpose. Some years there is plenty of time to do it. This year it feels like there is none. We can't do it beforehand because we are hosting Thanksgiving, so it is like an unwritten rule we can't. But if not before, then when? The Sparrow works Friday and Saturday after. It makes my whole week off a waste if I can't tackle this stuff, but I also would like the help and the Sparrow would like to participate in it.
We've got these foster kittens going in to get fixed tomorrow, which is a whole stress in and of itself. I need to be at the place by 7:30 which means I need to be out the door before 7 with them. They won't be happy and they'll need to be picked up Wednesday, all freaked out and stitched up with cones around their necks no doubt. So there will be ongoing stress with that.
While they are gone the back garage really needs to be swept up and cleaned. There's also two big plants that will probably be coming back in even though I was almost resigned to let the die outside. And the sensors on the garage door itself need to be replaced, and we are only guessing that is the issue with the door not closing all the way. All stuff that needs to be done within 24 hours, all while hoping there's no major work issues tomorrow, though I do have the weekly call about this stupid email migration.
There's the stress I keep carrying on about with Thanksgiving itself and the bullshit with my family. Really a nonissue of sorts, since we have already decided to just stay home. But, that doesn't matter when it comes to my mother and her years of manipulation and guilt. The inability to have adult conversations and the overwhelming inference in her every breath and throat-clearing that *I* am the one who "destroyed" the family.
We were talking extensively with the Sicilian at our get together Saturday about our mutual issues with our toxic families. It doesn't matter if nothing is said when it comes to these people, silence itself is its own weapon and tactic. So the burden of all that is on my shoulders.
We have this stupid Christmas gift project we need to work on, that the Sparrow has been bringing up over and over again for months. I personally feel it is just too much with how life is right now, but he gets on a dick about these things and he will just do them by himself like he did last year. I just think it's too much. Maybe some day when there aren't all these other responsibilities it'd be nice to sit down on a quiet Sunday and work on a project. But, they've become like obligations and not fun, like with our postcards. It's been fun, but the last couple months has just felt like too much.
I haven't even done any more postcards/greeting cards for that senior home letter writing campaign things I was involved in. I just have not had the time or mental capacity to do it. I bought a shit ton of Christmas cards last year that I was going to write to donate to one of those military card writing programs. Haven't written a single one. And we are close to the point where it is just too late for this year.
I have no life, yet it seems there's no time to do anything.
The check engine light on the Jeep keeps turning off and on with the weather. I got the replacement thermostat, but that's a whole project in itself. Involving draining the radiator and undoing hoses. A big deal even if it is not complicated. The Jeep itself has needed a tire rotation for six months. When will I find time to do that?
This new couch needs to be ordered. Have we given ourselves enough time to think about it or are we rushing this. And when it gets here, how the hell are we going to keep the cats from destroying it.
I've got bags and bags of stuff we've bought to store in our backup pantry downstairs. Most has been catalogued, but it's all sitting down there needing to be put on the shelves. And next to that, all the Halloween totes that were brought downstairs but I didn't put in place because I wanted to move the Christmas stuff where the Halloween stuff was and get everything away from the areas beneath where the upstairs bathrooms are, just because of paranoia and water leaks. There's also boxes of CDs and Blurays down there that need to be stored somewhere properly. Boxes of CDs and movies that need to go to the resale shop. Other boxes of stuff that have needed to go to Goodwill for months.
Should I mention the mulch pile? The bird feeders needing to be cleaned. The fish tanks too. The inside windows needing to be weather-sealed for the season. Leaves need to be blow off the roof and really the whole lawn just needing another once over with the mower that takes 45 minutes to start every time I need it. The snowblower should probably be pulled out and started just to test. Christmas lights outside need to go up, or not.
A lot of this, if not most, falls on me because the Sparrow is at work all day. He isn't feeling the same pressure over it all as I am, which is why he goes on about the little projects and gets frustrated when I don't want to deal with them. I suppose this is just like some housewife syndrome in me. I am here all day doing stuff, he is oblivious to it so he doesn't realize how completely worn out I am every day.
All the shopping, making sure we have litter and cat food and cleaners and salt for the water system (though he did do that himself last week), rotating the pantry downstairs, etc etc... I am trying to keep up with it all, and all these other little things are just compounding on the routine making me feel manic today.
The doom of work, ever-present through it all. It is a yearly tradition going on 16 years or so now that the week of Thanksgiving I get some kind of fisting. So I am stressed about the "what ifs" and "maybes" of next week, when nothing may happen at all. It is almost guaranteed it will, as it *ALWAYS* does. I hear from the Woman's Clinic about three times a year, and it is almost assured one of those times is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving... usually with an issue she's sat on for weeks and just not said anything about in all that time.
Too much stress, almost entirely over stuff I cannot even control. I just feel like I am on a rocket going through an asteroid field and getting dinged and zinged from every angle by space rocks. If I complain about this to the Sparrow his response is "well, we can just work on stuff during the week when I get home"... again, not getting the fact I've already been working on stuff around the house, in between actually working, all day.
And then we feel guilty on the weekends when we do go shopping in the mornings, or get breakfast/lunch, or if we lounge on the couch. Because we feel like we should have been using the day off to *do* something productive. But even when we actually do it only seems prove to us there's no time because of how little we can get accomplished because so many of our projects are longterm and there's no instant gratification. Add to it that time just seems to be racing by, faster and faster with each year.