Sat 22 Nov 2008
this fancy
Posted by bon under pondering stuff, stuff to be done
[17] Comments
two sick kids and grandparents visiting while Dave’s away in England. my thoughts clot up for lack of time, for want of downtime in the 24/7 press of feeding and tidying and playing and doing. my house clots up with snot and baby wipes, despite the helpful extra pairs of hands who clean the shed and rake the leaves and shovel the unseasonally early snow and rock the baby. always the relentless present. i long to abdicate, say excuse me. please run my life for a few days whilst i take to my bed. i do not know how. my pride, my foolish pride. someday i will be an old woman tottering my last on spindly legs and i will make my stand by the laundry pile, stubbornly folding clothes until i drop not because i love laundry but because it makes me sweaty with shame and self-consciousness to admit, i cannot. i want rest. sloth, the deadliest public sin, the one i cannot bear to wear in other people’s estimation. the one i chase lustily, glutton-like, in the privacy of my head.
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I SO HEAR YOU! Asking for help, admitting I could use help, is like putting my head on a chopping board. Just can’t do it. These days I learn to let go, let the house rot… until I can’t stand it anymore.
((hugs)) sweet Bon. I hope the kiddos heal up soon and you do get a good rest. Really, just let somebody do all the dirty work… you can return favor one day, no??
Thinking of you, sending healing, rest, order and love. xoxo
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
You know, I have a hard time accepting help, and even worse– asking for it. But I am learning. What turned it around for me to where I understand that I should, was a sermon by our old rabbi. His point was that while helping others is a good thing, letting others help you is also a very important good thing. If you don’t let people help, you are denying them a chance to feel what you feel when you help others, denying them a chance to do a good deed. Does that make sense? I really didn’t see it that way at all until I heard the man. I used to feel asking for help was a huge sign of weakness. And not that I am great at it now, but I am better, and mostly, I think, because now I see it as a thing we do as members of the community– we do when we can for ourselves and for others, and we accept help when we need it, and in the process we make or strengthen the ties that connect us to each other.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
When my parents visit it is utter chaos in the house. Which is why they are usually only here when we need a babysitter. The added bodies, together with the added noise (and arguements for attention) make me closterphobic. Add sick kids…..Good luck to you my friend.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
They have to make an award, stat. Asking for help is hard, yes… but sometimes it can be an exhausting thing to receive it when it’s a herd of hippopotami. Well-meaning and treasured hippopotami but still… makes decompression tough. Especially when the house is shrinking with all this snow!
Can you sneak away at least for a bath or some early ‘bedtime’ with a laptop or a book?
xo
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:50 pm
I’m getting much better at asking for help. It was unbelievably hard for most of my life, but each time I ask it gets a little bit easier.
Take the help. And when they’re done shoveling your snow, send ‘em my way to help dig me out over here.
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:55 am
want I should fly out?
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:34 pm
See, I can take physical help all the live long day…but emotional help? Nope.
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
to be honest, i’m all about the help…i’d be a wet wad on the floor at this point without it…but what i can’t do is say, “hey, i just want to be a wet wad on the floor. carry on.” instead i keep dragging my tail, trying to keep up appearances. kwim?
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I have long since given up trying to keep up with appearances.
I am sloth-like. Hear me roar.
Be well Bon. I’m thinking of you.
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
It isn’t sloth to be healing. I know what you mean about the problems with appearances, but you really have to let go of that and rest more. If you don’t, you will never recover.
Lie down, and just repeat, “My kids need me long-term, my kids need me long term…”
November 23rd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
You are made of the stoic stuff, huh? C’mere. I’ll show you how to do nothing, and feel good doin’ it. There will be liqueur involved.
November 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Especially in front of the parents, no? Got to be superwoman.
Yeah, that was me, too. I am now actually an old woman (legs still holding up, though) and I still can’t do it.
‘Scuse me, the dryer just shut off and I have to fold stuff.
November 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
The thing is, I think I am much better about asking for help from my friends. It’s the family members who don’t hear “help” from me (except hubby). Funny, and strange, that it should be so. The sad part is that for me– and I suspect for you, too– my family would be thrilled to give me a day off once in a while if I were to ask for help. I formed a mental picture of you asking for help and receiving a day alternately reading and sleeping in bed, interrupted only by grandparents toting in the baby for nursing. Maybe the “asking” could start like, “you know, my internet friends suggested that I ask for a day off since you’re here…”
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:09 pm
The thing is, it’s never all done, or even almost all done, once children enter the picture at least, so you just sometimes have to say, it’s all done enough for now. Do it Bon, let them work while you rest, just this once, so that when they go, you can be ready to take on double duty by yourself again!
November 24th, 2008 at 12:02 am
this was a good post for me to read, three-odd weeks from adding our addition. I got so tired and so run down after the birth of my daughter because I didn’t accept what was there. This time around, I need to be more open to offers.
Oh, and the snot, I hear ya’, it’s just neverending.
Hang in there.
November 24th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I know. I think this every time I am folding laundry. It is the letting go or more specifically I suppose the Not being able to let go.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
There’s no really great award being given out – that I know of, anyhow – for coping past your endurance. If there are people nearby who would be cheerful about helping you out, then by all means.
Which is easy for me to say, right? Righto.