Hundreds of thousands of people are dying. There’s no toilet paper at the store. I haven’t visited my parents in a month. But today, the sun was shining, and I bought steaks.
I don’t have time for this. I really don’t. I am working full time, mom-ing full time, going to school part time… Somewhere in there I’m also trying to be a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend. I need to eat right, exercise, take time for myself. Shave my legs. Wash my hair. Brush my teeth. Buy groceries. Pay bills. Oh, I also need to drink plenty of water, take my vitamins and get 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
So, no – I’m not just saying I don’t have time for this. I really, really don’t have time for this. I don’t have time to start and maintain a blog or keep a journal or … whatever you want to call it. I just don’t.
I’ve lost two old friends in the last 6 months. Both losses have been hard for me for different reasons. I think the hardest thing to deal with has been the guilt. I should have called them more. I should have bothered them more. I should have shown them that they were important. The problem is that I didn’t have time for that. There were a hundred different reasons on hundreds of different days. But if I’m being completely honest, there was more to it than that. It was partially because I was busy and partially because I was intimidated by my friends. Both of them were prettier, more popular, more likeable, and more interesting than me. So, even when I wasn’t too busy, I tried not to bother them. I didn’t want to get on their nerves. Now, I realize that was less about not wanting to get on their nerves and more about being afraid that I would test the bonds of our friendship and find that they didn’t like me all that much and I wasn’t worth the bother. Then things would be awkward, and no one wants that. So, at the end of the day, I didn’t try harder because I feared rejection. I suck at being vulnerable. I greatly regret that now.
We live in uncertain times… which is to say – we live. Anything could happen at anytime and if something happened to me, I want my daughter to have a chance to know me. I don’t want her to just hear about me from other people. I want her to hear my voice. If I died, and someone tells her – “Your mother worked so hard and did so much and never complained about any of it”, I want her to know that’s a lie. Yes, I work hard and I do a lot but I do NOTHING without complaining about it. My eulogy should say, “She complained about everything she ever had to do but she laughed while she complained about it.” That’s true.
I am painfully, brutally, and hopelessly human and flawed. So flawed that I let my friends, who I loved deeply, go to their graves without knowing how much they impacted my life and how much I valued their friendship. I regret it. And now I have to live with it. I really hope I learn from it.
Make time for what matters. And for who matters.
I don’t have time for this. I really don’t. So, fuck it. I’m going to do it anyway.
-My
