I am sick to death of responsibility and always feeling like I have to do the right thing.
I want just one day where someone looks after my needs. Wait, no I don’t, what I really want is just one day without having to be responsible to anyone or for anything. Just to do as I please. If I want to lie down in the afternoon I can and I don’t want to feel guilty for doing so. I don’t want to worry that someone is going to find me lying down and doing nothing. Because as you know, woman have this guilt complex that we must always be doing something or at least appear to be doing something. I want to be able to say “NO!” if someone asks me to do something I don’t want to do. I want to not have to appear happy when I am miserable. I want to be able to be pissed off and not have to apologize.
I want to eat when I am hungry and only feed myself not 3 children, a husband – who is nothing but a spoiled big kid, and a dog.
These are my new rules: If the clothes get too dirty to wear, throw them out and get new ones. Who cares if the house gets messy, I never promised to be a maid. Who cares if some committee work doesn’t get done right or even not at all! If I want to sleep in I will! If someone pisses me off I will tell him or her! If there is work to be done, someone else can do it!
Ok, that felt good, got it all off my chest. Yesterday is over, thank goodness. It was a real shitty day and I really only have myself to blame for it. I believe that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself and I also believe that if I can’t do it why should I think someone else can or should. So, I do it all myself and at the end of the day I walk away feeling totally used up and feeling like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
A friend recently told me that I have to just accept things that are handed to me, that there are people who are willing and want to help. For instance, last week she had to be away from home for the afternoon and the better part of the evening so she asked me if I would mind taking her 2 children home from school and keeping them through supper. Of course, I did not hesitate because if there is one person I can rely on to cover my back it is she. She felt she was overburdening me and was adamant that she was going to buy pizza for the whole bunch. Well, I was just as adamant that I was going to prepare a meal for everyone, I was going to make pizza – besides I was doing her the favour, right! So, for two days we went back and forth - “no, I will!” “No, I will!” “No, I insist it’s no big deal!” It was then that we both realized that neither one of us could accept the fact that someone was trying to help us. It was really more of a realization to me than to her. Here we were both trying to make things easier for the other and neither one wanted to accept the help without being able to give back. So, I let her buy the pizza. She felt better and I took a step towards realizing that I don’t always have to do it all, I can bend, I don’t always have to be responsible. I can do something for a friend and accept that she may feel the same way I do. Now I just have to take that one step at a time and slowly but surely I will be taking giant steps towards sharing the responsibility.
