When I get like this

I’m feeling really under the water right now. I use that phrase a lot, and it’s because it’s really how I feel. I swam for years, competitively, and I love being in large bodies of waters. I’ve lived near the ocean my entire life and I’ve swam in it where the water is cold and the waves are crashing, as well as where the water is warm and the sand gleams white even at several feet. I’ve been thrashed about by massive swells and I’ve felt the crushing weight of still water above me as I’ve tried to steal glances of coral and fish. The water is a wonderful thing, but it can drag you under and push the air out of your lungs. And when my life is putting pressure on me from all sides, it absolutely feels like I’m underwater, like I can’t breath and I’m unsure if I’ll make it to the surface in time to take that all important breath.

When my kids were young and we had way fewer resources (mostly because we had less money, but for other reasons also), I pointed my finger at all manner of circumstance I could not control to explain why I felt so overwhelmed. Now we have more resources (mostly because we make more money and have to spend less of it on childcare), and I recognize that the overwhelm I feel is largely due to my own choices. I prioritize certain things, and sometimes those choices add stress to my life, and make certain avenues of alleviating that stress less accessible.

One way I know I’m really feeling underwater is when I start to read other people’s blogs and feel an urge to mutter “must be nice” when I read about their situations and circumstances. When the resources they have, that I don’t, are all I can pick out of the page. I KNOW how much I have and that I can afford so much more than what I need. I would not change most things about my life and I don’t want the lives of the people I read. So when I start hearing myself mutter “must be nice” in the back of my mind, I know that my current regimen is not sustainable. I may want it to be, I may want to keep prioritizing things the way I have been, but it’s clearly not working for some part of me. I am not getting enough of something (usually downtime or effective rest) that I need, and I’ll have to shift my priorities to regain some balance.

The problem is, shifting my priorities usually means less of the things I enjoy, but that are not necessary, to make space for things that are serve me but are not necessarily enjoyable to execute (more sleep, healthier food, etc). But also, this year has been an outlier for us in that we’ve traveled more during the school year than ever before. We usually take one little trip a year, generally to the snow for a long weekend or down to LA or San Diego to see friends and visit a big park. This year we went to Universal Studios, camped at Pinnacles, went to Mexico City and camped at Joshua Tree. So many of our long weekends and breaks have been taken over by travel, and I’m learning that I can’t really handle that happily. It’s just too much for me. I need more of my breaks to be actual breaks! In the future I will have to advocate for my needs around this, now that I better know what they are.

I also need to hire a house cleaner. I keep telling myself that when the school year is over, and we stop paying so much for after school care, I can make it work. I really need to stick by that promise to myself.

And now I need to get back to work. I really didn’t have time to write this post, but sometimes I just need to get a thought down so I can move past it and focus on everything else. I really hope this was one of those times.