THE WORLD’S STILL SPINNING -- YO -- I’M NOT ON IT!
Nothing says tired like a crashed-out kid. To bad its not me!
Not again! I got up this morning and realized that for the last month, while the earth loops around the sun on its plucky little axis, it has proceeded to do its remarkably reliable 24-hour rotation and taken all seven-something billion of us with it, with no concern for whether or not I’m actually getting up and participating in it.
It doesn’t seem to care that 7:45 a.m. rolls around and I’m still in bed, clinging to the sheets like my life depends on it, my bored-to-teary-eyed kids have nudged me for the umpteenth time begging for cereal, the phone’s rung off the hook with perky mom-friends wondering if we’re on for an after-school play-date (try me at noon), even my lazy-ass dog is looking at me from her mangy doggy-throne with a disgusted “you suck Oscar Madison” as though I don’t even do slothful well. They can all kiss my… lily white a$$, because I don’t FEEEEEEEEL like it. I wanna stay the F asleep!
Just because I have kids doesn’t mean I signed up for a 20 year sentence of early mornings ev-er-y-sing-le-day, endless 3:00 a.m. wake-ups (can I have a cough candy? can I sleep with you? I peed the bed… again), shuttle-bussing to-fro school/ lessons/ playdates/ birthdays, tyrannical meal-prep – three square ones a day – chock full of vitamins, made from mold-free ingredients, and wait, they better taste better than a molten chocolate lava cake OR I AIN’T EATING IT. And make it in the shape of a happy face, or a manta ray, no, I want my breaded chicken stick to look like an all-i-ga-tor, so there! I SAID PUH-LEASE, YOU DIDN’T HEAR ME, WAAAAAAAAA! Pass the plum sauce.
Don’t talk to me about the upside and the beauty/innocence/sweetness and the blah-blah-blah what would life be like without children, and imagine yourself at 60, and who’s going to take care of you, and this is what life’s all about and snooooooore. I know all this. And I agree. But I just want to bitch… ok? Is that so bad? Am I the only one? Sometimes it feels that way. Like when I pull up to the school without even bothering with a comb, or a toothbrush, or a bra. My now signature crown-top pony-tail loose from a fractured sleep, and not a sexy JFL loose pony-tail, but rather a sticky with dry-shampoo, finger-combed, dark-rooted, bleached out pony-tail that doesn’t even look real because the end of the “tail” is so divergent in tone from the base of the hair connected to my dry, tired, begging-for-sun epidermis, that it’s just plain sad.
And if I even sniff the D-word, with its faux I-care-I-really-really-care, I will eat my right elbow. I’m not D-pressed, I’m pressed… like every single button pressed, and I’m tired. And if you knew me you’d know I’m busy, like really busy. But sometimes I get not-busy, as in not-working for a pay-check and not urgently needing to fulfill kids needs, or household needs, or pay-bills, or stop the house from burning down. On those rare occasions when there isn’t anything urgent to do, which is not all that often, then I find myself stymied. Yes, stymied. “Duh, what do I do next George?” Because, once all the urgent and ever-so-detailed details of my world (and the five other souls living in it, if you don’t think dogs have a soul, then four, yes I included my au pair) are taken care of, then I’m simply left with a really long to-do list that consists of not-so-urgent things, but things nonetheless that really shouldn’t be ignored:
--turn the compost pile --clean the closets --rat-proof the garage
--change summer clothes out for winter clothes before April, or maybe don’t, summer’s just around the corner
--clean the house/windows/carpets/car/dog/clothes…
--print the photos, do the photo-book, Christmas card, now Valentine’s, scratch that Easter, ah forget it, thank you cards
--call my mother/sister/brother/friend-s-s-s (do I have any?)
Maybe I’m wrong, but I see this list as things that many moms get a chance to tackle, without being so damn exhausted by the time they get to tackle it, that they actually DO it and don’t feel like they just want to sleep for a month. I know everyone’s busy and I’m not trying to win the “exhausted mom” award (although I bet I’d rank), but I just wish that when I’m tired, everyone else could be tired too, maybe sleep when I sleep, or just sleep in once in awhile so I don’t feel so guilty when I need to do it for two weeks straight.
Half the time, if I don’t volunteer for a decent rest, or some stillness in my life, then my body will just plain force it: “F-U lady, I’m going down. If you’re not taking me down, I’m taking YOU down… here’s a nice sore throat for yah, how do you like that? How about a snotty nose? No, not going to slow you down? Ok, yeast infection it is. Now go get some anti-fungal and a good night’s sleep bitch!”
Do I get any rest from this? No, now I’m tired and itchy. Thank you very much. And I cap all this fun off with a visit to my favorite web-site: worldometers.info to watch the current world population tally grow exponentially as we confirm the rumors, “humans are a scourge!” There’s some morbid satisfaction here, where I say, “I told you we’re all screwed.” You know we hit seven billion on October 31st 2011? Check out the CO2 emissions number in tons as the meter runs faster than the eye can follow. Did you know there’s a car produced every second and there are well over five million cell phones sold a DAY? And the ‘days to the end of oil’ figure will put a lump in your gullet the size of a pick-up, no, a Hemmy. Told you it was fuuuuuun, like yeast infection fun.
World, go to sleep. Chuck the roids! Take a rest with me. Instead of pajama day for kids, make pajama day for kids AND moms, and do it once a week. Instead of asking for more parent volunteers, pull back the ceaseless projects and tell moms they’re off the hook for a stint. Un-super-mom-ify the community and maybe we’ll un-super-man-ify the world. Let’s just hang, nap, and check into BE-hab. Screw making things better—rehabilitating this and that—turn off the treadmill and be. BE!
It wouldn’t kill us, especially when you see those numbers on the worldometer. Going, doing, rushing, making, dressing, talking, working, moving, progress can be depressing, and scary. But then I remember the quote: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste… no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should” and find some comfort in Max Ehrmann’s view of the world.
Que sera sera… Whether I like it or not, whether I’m tired or not, the earth will just keep spinning. Standing on the equator the earth spins at about 1000 miles an hour, and if it stopped, like for me or for any other reason, the atmosphere would still keep zipping along at the same break-neck speed. Anything not attached to bedrock, i.e. most things, would pretty much be scoured clean—including me. Nice. Truth is, I don’t really want that, and, despite my bitchy rant, I really do love my life (most of the time) and would prefer to not get sucked into a space vortex any time soon. So world, keep on spinning and moving and shaking, I’m going the F to sleep…