A few things have been swimming around in my mind recently. First, the death of John McCain. I found myself transfixed while watching his memorial services, funeral and television tributes after he passed away. I don't know why; it's not like he was my Senator or anything. Maybe it was my admiration for his political stances in the last few years of his life. Maybe it was the abruptness of how quickly he died after declaring that he was stopping his cancer treatment, which only highlighted the glaring reality of our mortality. Maybe it's because my own father, though not as old as McCain, is retiring at the end of this week after a 50 year run, and I'm starting to think about what his twilight years will look like. I know lots of people whose parents passed when they were relatively young, and I'm grateful that I didn't have to deal with that when I was younger and way more self-destructive than I am now. Obviously I'm counting on my dad to be around for a long time to come, but as we're all aware, we are not promised tomorrow. I've been lucky enough to have both my parents around my entire life, and I'm not ready to face what life would be like without both of them.
Speaking of fallibility, I threw my back out recently while playing with my toddler, and it has really opened my eyes to the fact that I chose to wait so long to have kids. I'm kind of regretting not having them when I was younger and in better shape. To add insult to injury, we're trying to get pregnant again, and nothing kills your confidence like throwing your back out at age 36. I say it all the time: I need to get back into the habit of exercising and paying more attention to my physical fitness. And as a mom of a toddler with a full-time job, also me: I have no time to do anything for myself. Of course this isn't entirely true. Instead of spending an hour at Target tonight, I could've worked out. Instead of planning drinks and dinner with my girlfriends, I could plan a walk on the canal. Here's the thing, though: by the time I'm done with my 8-hour work day, picking up my kid, making dinner with multiple interruptions from my kid, feeding the kid, cleaning up dinner, bath time and bed time routines, laundry, grocery shopping and whatever else needs to be done, I'm exhausted. I'm spent. So I allow myself time to sit and veg and drink wine and mindlessly scroll social media because I feel like I deserve it. I suppose with that mindset, though, I also deserve my sexy beer gut. Rock and a hard place. And now, we're trying to add another human to the fray. What? Why? How?
I had something else I wanted to put down, but I've forgotten what it is because now I'm thinking about what I'm going to make for dinner tomorrow.......and how much time I have to get my work trainings done before they're due...... and why I've been feeling like I'm on the verge of an ulcer for the past three days.....and maybe it's actually a heart attack...... and how it's crucial I get to bed earlier.... and oh look it's almost 11pm and I still have laundry to put in the dryer...... and I can't forget to get a new toothbrush out for my kid because he threw his in the trash yesterday...... and I still need to make a vet appointment for the cat..... and the dog needs his flea treatment........ and I need to get a card for my dad.......
MOM LIFE, YO.
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