On guilt and overwhelm
Today is the first day back from vacation — a week on Songo Pond. Sometimes it feels like my whole life is a vacation, though one riddled with constant guilt over not doing enough. My actual vacation had less guilt, though there was still some.
I worry constantly, for example, about not doing the right things for our dogs and/or not helping them learn how to behave around other people. They bark quite a bit. They jump on people. Barney got several nasty hot spots while we were away because we didn’t make sure he got dry after swimming. They are both covered in scabs from various insect bites. Billie is showing more and more leash reactivity. They both ran over to neighboring camps a few times when we weren’t paying quite enough attention. This morning they are showing signs of boredom because we didn’t leave the house/yard yesterday and, though fun, a rousing game of fetch only gets them so far.
Now I look around and think about the tasks I need to do: Vacuum (a daily or twice-daily activity), work on editing a paper and adding references, various administrative tasks for work, programmatic data analysis, clean the bathroom, walk the dogs, pay medical bills. Somewhere buried in a pile of other papers there is a longer to-do list. It contains things like starting to bring in wood (because if I don’t start soon, I’ll have to do it quickly and my carpal tunnel with explode), relocating the items that are currently in the nursery/kid room closet, and assembling the composter that has been sitting in the garage nearly finished since last fall.
It’s really not so bad, but it feels hard.
I sometimes actually like the chores of life. I like being active and accomplishing things. I like taking pride in the house and yard. Then other times, and particularly when it’s cloudy, like today, I’d prefer to eat and drink, participate in some kind of entertaining activity, hang out on the couch with J, send the dogs out to play on their own.
I know that parents don’t get breaks the way that I do. I know that this could change about my own life any day now. We still aren’t officially licensed, but we dropped off our fourth water sample for testing, and we signed the agreement stating that we won’t use tap water until it comes back safe, so we could be at any time. We could be called today and asked to take in a child. And then… well, I have no idea. I sometimes try to imagine what life will be like, but I really just can’t.
In summary, I feel overwhelmed. I feel guilty that I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I’m in this weird limbo and have no idea where life is going. I feel guilty that I’m not always excited about the changes to come. I feel guilty that I watch too much tv, and worried that it will be really hard to decrease my downtime when we do have a kid. I feel guilty that I don’t get the things on the list done. I feel guilty that my life is so much better than many people and that I spend so much money and that I have everything I want most of the time. I feel undeserving.
