I’ve always been a doer. I’m the kind of person who needs to be doing 500 things at one time to feel alive. I’m not sure if that was bred into me or if it was a learned habit. I just know that I have a hard time doing nothing.
All I’ve ever wanted to do is have a day where I can stay in my pajamas and watch TV. I want to eat a gallon of ice cream, binge trash tv like “Below Deck” and not feel guilty. But for me, this is absolutely impossible.
As an adult who worked in a fast paced environment for 16 years, I just felt and thought that was normal. I felt like if I wasn’t working ridiculously hard then I didn’t earn my paycheck.
While working I’m also keeping a clean house, raising children and cooking five meals a day because no one eats the same thing. That would be way too easy if we just ate one meal that we all loved. Even on taco night, I have to make one child a quesadilla and the other one a specialty nacho order.
Am I the only person that feels like my body is on auto pilot?
I know I’m doing things, but while I’m working on one task, I move to another, while I’m thinking about something else… and now I have self diagnosed myself with attention deficit. Disorder Let’s face it all moms have that!
Why? Well because we are doers not queens of procrastination. So this past week, I went down hard. Wednesday night I had the chills, I was achy and my brain was literally turning off. I didn’t have a fever, I just felt like trash.
My husband, John, took one look at me and literally told me to lay down. I resisted, I just put a pillow behind my head on the couch, wrapped myself in a giant blanket and drifted to sleep. When I woke up I felt over heated, I had two cats sleeping on top of me and I felt like death.
I’m not rational at all when I’m sick. I put a front on like everything is totally fine but I’ve already self diagnosed myself with COVID-19, flu or something way worse. Now I’m dying… my brain has already accepted it.
So, I walked to the closet, mustered up courage and grabbed a Belvita chocolate bar. My life is ending right now so I need to have some joy before I die right here. This is the drama that goes through my head. I took a bite, looked around and digested the bar. I’m now ready to die. This is it… so I walked to bed, lay down, and drifted off yet again.
A few hours later I woke up. I already requested a sick day at work. So I know I need to pull it together. When the kids go to school I need to straighten up before I try to rest for the day. To my surprise I’m alive, I didn’t bite the big one, but my body still feels like it’s on death row. Once the kids head out for school I do the unimaginable… I sit on the couch, pull up the ottoman, cover myself with a blanket and put on “Below Deck.”
I literally sat for five hours undisturbed watching trash TV. I did get up and for bathroom breaks, water, and a bowl of ice cream. I started to feel a little better so I got up, used the restroom and decided I needed to bleach the shower. This was followed by vacuuming up, steaming floors and boom! I was down again. I was achy, I was tired, I felt like trash once again. But I mustered through, continued cleaning and all to lay down, again!
I felt like I was getting worse, yet I still had no fever, so I requested another sick day. After that I decided to do a load of laundry, change my sheets and prep dinner. Guess what was happening, I was feeling terrible yet again. So before I crashed, I picked up my kids from school, got them situated, finished dinner and was back to the couch for more last minute thoughts of life and self loathing.
John was annoyed walking into our clean house when he was home from work. He told me I needed rest. I just barked back with, “Who’s going to do everything?” But, he reassured me he would help and do his best. So, I actually went to bed, I didn’t clean up, I just walked into my room, covered myself with a blanket and fell asleep.
Why am I telling you this story? Because, I had to channel my Queen of Procrastination to feel like myself.
My body was not working, it was sending me clear signals that I needed to rest, and I wasn’t listening. So my lesson here is, listen to your body, take time for yourself, just channel that Queen in times of need.
We aren’t machines, we can’t do it all. Sometimes, parents just need a day off to re-center and that’s 100 percent OK.
PS: The laundry will never stop with a family of five, and for any other person out there that struggles with the anxiety over piles, just know they keep on coming. You can’t win that war.
Loraine Griffiths is a fifth-generation Hammontonian, graphic designer, wife and mother of three. She can be reached through email at LifeWithLoraine@gmail.com.