In the car this morning, I kept trying to think of things that would fit in a “running on” category: fumes, empty, Dunkin’, sentences… although the last one is really “run on” while the first two seem pretty specifically “running on.” I’m not super clear on the semantics of the Dunkin’ jingle. Anyway, I may have a bit of a Connections addiction. Oooh! Adrenaline!
Running on fumes is stuck in my brain because that’s all I’ve got in the tank at the moment. To switch metaphors: my social battery is drained. And I cannot see when I’ll have time to recharge it.
I feel like I JUST WROTE ABOUT THIS, “this” being my currently intense feeling of over-scheduled overwhelm. You’ve heard it already. You’ve likely LIVED IT already. It’s nothing new, we’re all dealing with All The Things, and yet, this is what’s on my mind so I’m going to vent about it.
And yes, I DO feel like a cliche, and I do feel mildly ridiculous because I only have the one child and the one husband and the zero full-time jobs, and I also still feel like I need a solid stretch of people-free time or I am going to lose my mind.
This morning I cancelled a get-together with a close friend because I just couldn’t. And I’m feeling guilty, even though she was not only completely understanding, but also praised me for being honest about what I needed (she is a really good friend), because I feel Time With Friends should be a top priority, and apparently it isn’t.
Or maybe it is a top priority, it’s just… trumped by other priorities? I don’t know. Priorities kind of suck, because by their very nature you are putting some things ahead of other things and the things that are lower on the list are bound to get their feelings hurt.
You know what? I think part of my issue is that one of things that has moved above “Time With Friends” on the list is something that I don’t even enjoy. And yet, it’s inextricable from one of my very uppermost priorities, which is My Kid.
My kid, as you know from all my whining of late, is in a fall sport. It is important to me that I attend her games.
Here I feel compelled to make a little pit stop in Toleranceville, whose town motto is Just Because It’s Important to Me Doesn’t Mean It Needs to Be Important to You.
It is important to me to attend Carla’s games. It is also important to me, for Reasons, that we attend the games of her teammates. (Long, complicated, and boring story short: There are three separate teams, which means that, on any given day, there could be three separate games.)
These things are important to me, and therefore we are making them work. But it sucks. It sucks because sometimes Carla and I are stuck at a middle school sporting venue for up to three hours at a time. It sucks because Carla – as I previously mentioned – has a shitload of homework this year. It sucks because my butt and back hate the bleachers, and I keep forgetting to bring my cushy stadium seat with me from the car.
It also sucks because I am sometimes socializing with other parents for two to three hours at a time. The other parents are lovely, and we cheer each other’s kids on, and chat about schoolwork and friendship drama and hair products.
But this is too much socializing. I am not cut out for this volume of socializing!
My preferred level of socializing: One to two hours a week of chit-chat with a friend in person, maybe another thirty to sixty minutes of chatting via phone with another friend. In the course of an ideal week, I might also enjoy spending time with my parents for an hour or two. Maybe I could swing two social events in one week, if they were separated by a buffer of several days.
That’s a total of about five hours of social interaction (not counting time with my husband and daughter).
Let’s look at the reality, starting a week ago today:
- One hour and forty-five minutes of school meetings
- Four hours of hosting an impromptu pool party featuring five children and one adult
- Five hours of sports events
- Six and a half hours of one-on-one conversation
- Seven hours of social commitments
That’s more than an entire day’s worth of interacting with other people.
I realize that for a lot of people, twenty-four hours of interpersonal communication doesn’t sound like a lot. If you work full time outside the home, for instance, spending forty hours a week with other people is standard. (I honestly cannot fathom how I ever worked in an office.) But in my case, this past week, I’ve experienced nearly 500% more social time than my ideal. And I’m looking down the barrel of three more hours of sports-mom social time this afternoon.
I would like to hole up in a dark, silent room with my cat and a pile of books until January, please and thank you.
Since that’s not feasible, I have been looking at the calendar with an eye to trimming things back. But this is where things get messy. While the prevailing advice seems to be along the lines of “put on your own oxygen mask first” and “don’t be afraid to say no” and “treat self-care as non-negotiable,” it’s not quite as easy to implement as it sounds.
In the next two weeks alone, we have a fancy event, to which we RSVPed a long time ago; please trust me when I say that we cannot back out without serious consequences. We have family commitments – including house guests staying for a few days – and a birthday celebration that feel important to stick with. I have a physical therapy follow-up and a hair appointment and an appointment with the sleep specialist – all of which are varying levels of Necessary, and all of which take a lot of social energy. Carla, of course, has ongoing sporting events and an upcoming musical performance. There are various school events that I need to attend, and please believe me that I am shirking PLENTY of them and only planning to attend the really necessary ones. When I look at this normal if lengthy list of upcoming events, all I can see are the hours and hours and hours of energy I will need to summon for listening and responding and acting like a reasonable human.
There are a bunch of things that need to be on the calendar that aren’t yet, because I am dreading adding MORE to the schedule: a meeting to discuss the end-of-lease procedure for my car, an appointment with someone about a potential allergy, a follow-up appointment with a doctor, a meeting with our contractor about our roof replacement, a phone call with the garage door installer, a conversation about next steps to address the fucking pool leak. There are relationship maintenance things that keep getting relegated to “later,” like a catch-up phone call with my childhood best friend, a dinner with friends we need to reciprocate, the long-discussed-but-never-materialized-drinks with neighbors. And literally ALL of my creative pursuits have been suspended for now – unless you count the latest drivel I’ve posted, which, well, it’s something, I guess.
I feel like some things are easier to cancel or reschedule than others. I feel like some people are more understanding than others. And yet it feels bad and wrong and taking-advantage-of to, essentially, de-prioritize those events and people simply because it’s easier to do so.
The friend I bailed on this morning: I knew she would understand. But I cherish our friendship and I want to prioritize our time together. Plus, even the most understanding friend is bound to feel hurt and inferior and unwanted if she keeps getting cut. However… if I’m completely depleted from all these other commitments, I can’t give 100% to her anyway, which isn’t fair. Is it better to postpone our time together until I can focus on her? Shouldn’t I be trying to edit out the things that are less crucial over the longterm – like sitting in the bleachers for three hours a night??? Except that feels important for reasons that I cannot fully articulate, reasons related to sportsmanship and being a team player and supporting others and showing my kid that sometimes you do the thing you feel is right even if it’s not the easy thing. Reasons that other parents have clearly deemed less important to them than things like eating dinner together or focusing on homework first or getting to bed at a reasonable time. And, to be clear, I get why other parents are emphasizing the things they are! Those things are also important! Don’t make me take us back to Toleranceville!
My writing – I feel especially guilty about putting that on the backburner. I am well aware of the advice to treat your creative work like a job and no matter what, get your butt in the chair and be consistent, and I am doing none of those things. Does that mean it’s really not as important to me as I’d like to think it is? Does that mean I’m prioritizing the wrong things? Or does it mean that I’m an inveterate people pleaser, and sacrificing the things that affect only me instead of the things that affect other people feels more doable than trying to put myself first?
I’m not expecting you to resolve this for me. (The obvious answer is Don’t go to three hours of sports, but that is not the route I am choosing, even if you think I am being insane.) I’m not expecting me to resolve it for me. I think I just have to power through until the end of the sports season, and hope that whatever comes next is less socially demanding. Maybe I need to buy myself this, as a heads up for anyone I encounter.
