I’m Drowning in My Own Blessings

I had planned to take a quick break from my usual Monday morning dispatch because MOMCON is coming up in a week and, professionally speaking, I am currently being utilized up the wazoo.

Which is, unfortunately, my own fault.

For the past several years, I have occasionally mentioned—to the universe, my coworkers, and probably anyone trapped next to me in an elevator—that I felt slightly underutilized at MOMCON.

Well. 

Apparently the universe keeps receipts.

This year I am leading a large-group training, teaching two workshops, and, because I have apparently confused myself with Brené Brown, I feel compelled to not only outline all three talks, but fully script them and then memorize roughly 90% of the words so I can wander casually around the stage appearing to have spontaneous thoughts.

You know those TED speakers who look like they just strolled onstage and happened to have a brilliant 18-minute reflection on human vulnerability?

Months of preparation. Practice. Rehearsal. More rehearsal. Rehearsing the part where they appear not to have rehearsed.

But wait! There’s more.

A friend and I are also MC’ing the volunteer training day because last year we made the excellent suggestion that the day could really use a couple of MCs.

We neglected to ask two important follow-up questions:

A) Who?

and

B) How much work is it to essentially write a two-woman, one-act play featuring banter, costume changes, announcements, and—obviously—a mid-day karaoke session?

The answer to A was “you two.”

The answer to B was “more than you think.”

So that’s going well.

Were this ALL I had going on, I might be fine.

But in a shocking oversight, I failed to account for THE ENTIRE REST OF MY LIFE.

I still have two teenagers living at home who, despite years of intensive training and phones capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge, continue to need assistance with nearly every operational aspect of being alive.

I also have a husband who, for reasons I cannot fully explain, enjoys spending time with me and would apparently like our marriage to include ongoing conversation.

There is also the house, which we continue to live in every single day, generating an absolutely staggering amount of evidence that people live here.

Why does a family of four produce seventeen drinking glasses between breakfast and dinner?

Why do countertops regenerate clutter overnight like some sort of domestic starfish?

I also have my actual job, a book I’m supposed to be writing with a friend, and a book club that has the nerve to continue assigning books.

And apparently women my age are now supposed to eat protein continuously and lift heavy objects several times a week so our bones do not quietly turn to powder.

Every time I finish eating protein, it is time to eat more protein.

I am basically a Labrador with a kettlebell.

It’s a lot. And here is the deeply inconvenient part: almost all of it is good.

I would love to tell you I am overwhelmed because random outside forces have descended upon my peaceful life and wreaked havoc.

The truth is, I am largely drowning in my own blessings - the things I prayed for, hoped for, and worked for.

A beautiful home that needs care.

Healthy kids who still want me involved in their lives.

A husband who wants to talk to me, which I recognize is objectively preferable to the alternative.

Work that matters to me, with people who value what I contribute.

A body with a solid GOOD-USED rating that I would like to keep operational for several more decades.

These are all gifts. They are also, often, exhausting. Gratitude and overwhelm feel like they should cancel each other out. They don’t.

You can love your life and still occasionally want everyone in it to stop asking you questions.

You can know something is a blessing and still need to lie horizontally in a dark room for twelve minutes.

Feeling maxed out does not automatically mean you’ve done something wrong. It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to quit something, move to a cabin in Montana, or finally build the color-coded household command center you saved on Pinterest in 2017.

Sometimes you are simply in a season when good things require more from you than usual.

More attention.

More energy.

More protein.

It can feel a little like breaking in a new pair of shoes. You bought them because you love them and believe you’ll have a beautiful future together . And yet, currently, they are removing the skin from your heels.

Sometimes discomfort means something is wrong.

Sometimes it just means you are adjusting.

And yes, sometimes it means you have slightly overextended yourself and will need to establish a few better systems once you stop running from appointment to appointment clutching a rotisserie chicken.

That is also life.

I keep learning that we are usually capable of more than we think. Not infinitely more—there is no prize for becoming the most efficient exhausted woman in your zip code—but enough to stretch, adjust, and eventually find our footing.

So this is my very short dispatch for the week, which somehow became a medium-length dispatch because apparently I am incapable of resting even from writing about needing rest.

If you are overwhelmed by a life you are also deeply grateful for, you are not doing gratitude wrong. Some gifts are heavy and require two hands.

I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Stay sane. Eat some protein.