A couple days ago when I was on my way to work out* I became aware of how tensely I was clenching my jaw. I was just feeling so …. RESPONSIBLE for everything. I was irritated and tired and mad at it all – all of life being dumped on my shoulders to manage.
*yes, I’m still an insufferable worky-outty gloater….the winter months have taken a bit of a toll of my frequency, but i’m still at 3 or 4 times a week, but my early morning getting-up is on pause. It’s winter in the midwest. It’s too cold and dark and the only suitable place at 6 a.m. is in my bed, snuggled up with my five three cats.
Life can just be a lot, even when nothing out-of-the-ordinary is happening.
I now know why Mad Men in the 50’s and 60’s or whatever era that was came home from a long day at the office and wanted to be greeted with a martini and skirted wife.
I’d like to be greeted with a wife and a martini at the end of my workday, and I work from home part of the time. I have to be Mad Men and then I have to be my own stay-at-home-wife, and also the housemaid and the cook and the accountant and plumber** and manage just any old dumb thing that comes up, and frankly no wonder my damn jaw is clenched most of the time and in all honestly, I just wasn’t built to have to be so hard. I used to be softer, in spirit and mind.
**during the Big Freeze a few weeks ago, I took a shower and the shower wouldn’t drain. The bathroom is on an outside wall, so I figured the pipes were #1 burst or #2 froze up or #3 had a hair clog, but what I knew for sure was I didn’t want to deal with it at 9 p.m. in the evening, yet I had to because I was the one who’s always Responsible, and also I was the only one at home. So I bucketed the water out, drilled the drain top off to see if we just had a clog or what-the-what was happening, tried plunging, texted My Mister who was working but he did ask almighty google and recommended the idea to do a concoction of white vinegar + baking soda + boiling hot water and that did the trick so I’m not sure if it was clogged or froze up a little, but it started working and I felt just like clark griswold in xmas vacation.
Except i don’t always want to have to be the one to handle all the adult responsible things, yet here we are, and i’m not entirely sure how i got here.
I also want to add that when I was ruling out the burst pipe, I went downstairs to give it a look-around and I happened to look outside and noticed big man footprints in the snow, by the patio door, coming and going and I thought to myself, “motherfucker, do I have to fix the plumbing and murder a fucker tonight, too?” Because if someone was snooping around and thinking about a break-in, I will coldblood murder your ass if you breach the entranceways and I won’t even think twice, just so you know, Bad Guys. My compassion for people is at a minimum lately, especially the robber bad guy types who probably voted for trumpybear and were part of the J6 insurrection and that’s two good reasons to shoot a fucker right there, if they were inclined to break into Chez Bang Bang.
But luckily I didn’t have to clear the drain AND murder anyone, and when I mentioned the giant footprints to My Mister, he informed me it was his flippers that left the tracks, as he had gone out to the shed a couple times earlier that day looking for something.
We have become super sidetracked here, to which I say, “Welcome To The Word Ride, Reader! You’ve missed this!”
Also, I didn’t intend to write so many swears, but they just seem to be forming on their own. I’m not taking them back, because I don’t want to censor my fingers.****
****my god, my fingers are a whole ‘nother story all on their own. I don’t know what in the eff happened, but I woke one morning last month and a few of my fingers were just stuck down and wouldn’t pop up and WTF, Body! You’re an ATHLETE and now I have to deal with this nonsense? My friend said it sounds like “trigger finger” and while it’s not affecting my actual trigger finger – i can still shoot a m-effer – it’s affecting my whole entire hand strength and my fingers hurt all. the. time. now. I’ve added this new dilemma to my My Chart for me and Mandy (the very best health care practitioner in the whole wide world) to discuss when I see her later this month. I’m just…pissed off about it. Like, I do not care to have one more damn thing to solve. and this finger situation is just almost the last straw, except it’s NOT the last straw because I also woke up one morning a few weeks ago and had what looked like a giant skin tag on my eyelid, and after unsuccessfully trying to #1 tweeze it off and then #2 dry it out with apple cider vinegar so it would fall off my lid – which only resulted in my stinging my own eye with apple cider vinegar – I went to a dermatologist who was equipped to put a stingy needle in my eyelid and lop it off and it turns out it was just a blood vessel that burst forth from my eyelid and was making itself known and what in the actual fuck, Reader.
And that brings us back to where we started. I am a woman made of steel and stones and tears and bones and scars and my jaw is clenched a lot of the time and I am mean and talk a little aggressively and that’s what happens when you have to do all the things yourself.
I know other women do it, and they do it with ease and lightness and grace.
I’m not her.
I’ve gotten just….hard. Sometimes. More than I want to be.
I am trying to let the books and music and rainfall and stardust and moonlight and flowers flow through me, and re-learn to daydream, because I think I’ve forgotten how to do that. I would like a few wild adventures as well, thank you. But also, I’d like to not have to be the one to plant the flowers or plan the wild adventures. I just sometimes wanna go along for the ride.