Every week, while darting around the streets of my life, I think to myself “next week, it’s gonna be calmer.”
Next week, it’s gonna be easier.
Next week, I won’t have so much to do.
I will rest. I will have a little time. I will be less frantic. I’ll breathe.
Next week.
And yes, you guessed it. “Next week” never comes. But like an insane person thinking circumstances will change even though no circumstance has changed, I continue to rely on my hope for “next week.”
I wake. I prepare. I cook. I homeschool. I shower. I drive. I work. I study. I call. I call back. I deposit. I buy. I race. I listen. I study. I write. I chase. I do so much more.
I crawl into bed.
I sleep, or I do not sleep.
And then, I do it again.
Often, like yesterday for example, I’m driving home from work at 4pm and I’m delighted that tonight I finally – for the first time in god knows how long – get to go home and chill (well, “chill”, as much as you can with a neurotic toddler bolting around). Sit. Eat. REST. Maybe read. Do nothing. Definitely do nothing. And my husband calls and says “Tonight I gotta cut that beef (he’s a butcher at his dad’s ranch, in addition to an ironworker), and Rocket has a baseball game at 6pm, and Ava has one at 7pm. Sorry.”
And I do it again.
Next week.
Next week I’ll have less to do.
Nope, I won’t. There will be the same things to do. And the same person to do them.
I’m not pitying myself. I dig my life. It wouldn’t break my heart if I were handed some very large sum of money and could therefore work less, but I don’t want my life to suddenly become less busy, because that would mean less family, less mothering, less joy. It wouldn’t destroy me to learn that somebody died and left me a butler, and a driver, and a cook. But hey.
I’m not THAT insane.
What stings a little sometimes is the stuff left undone. Like that book I’ve been writing. I’m on page 40. I’ll never get off page 40.
I have something to say in that book, but I don’t have time to say it.
And those books on my nightstand. I want to read them.
And the blog posts in my head that will take a little time and focus. I’d like to write them.
And that call to my friend I’ve been meaning to make.
And that theory I’d like to read about that idea I had about that Melville story I read. A year ago.
But alas, this is it. This is the life. This is the life for us women (and some men, I’m sure) who work for a living and have kids and attempt to do right by them, and ourselves.
This is the life for awhile, at least.
Until next week comes for real.
And I miss this one terribly, because it was the time when my kids were little and my life was insane.
Ladies, I’m just so tired.
Do you ever get that sometimes? That tired that’s more than tired, more than sleepy, more than weak. That tired that washes over you like a 100-foot wave, pounding you into the depths until you just collapse. The mind, the emotions, the legs. All of it. Down.
Thank God next week it’ll be easier.