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There are certain things my husband just will not do. It amazes me that he has the resolve to walk away so easily. To leave something undone. Without guilt. Without a second thought. To leave it in my hands.
My hands that are already exhausted by all that needs doing in life. The chores, the tasks, the mountains of laundry. The wiping of noses, the tying of laces, the dressing, feeding, caretaking of my mommy life. I am exhausted by the mere thought of it all, let alone the execution. Exhausted by trying to ignore my duties, by trying to embrace them. By alternately loving and hating the chaos of my house and my heart. There is no rest. There is no balance. There is no true peace.
It is such work. Just to live. It is such work to persevere. Constantly. Evermore. Day after day. Holding yourself up for fear that you’ll drown.
I often feel lost in it all. In my chores and obligations. In my role as a mother and a wife. In my home, the place I should feel most welcome.
I often feel lost in myself. Weak for fighting all the time. Vulnerable to my very existence–to how full and important it is without me even acknowledging it as such.
But I know I am strong. And I know I will push on. I will answer the demands of my children and of my life. I will pick up where my husband leaves off. I will foster the love and hope that builds the beauty of our world. I am strong enough for that. I am the girl who survived expulsion from boarding school. I am the girl who survived a needle to her arm. Who survived car crashes and midnight chases. Who survived hurting every single person that I love.
Life does a good job of reminding, however, that being strong does not mean I am bulletproof. Does not mean I am impenetrable. Does not mean I should even strive to be. It strengthens me to admit that I cannot be hardened. I won’t be untouchable. I refuse to be unbothered and unworn. That I am not that way. I am not that kind. I am softer. I am moldable. I am yielding.
This truth soothes me when I feel tackled by life. Squished. Broken down. Pieced apart. When my soul–the light of my soul–is shaded. When one small moment finds me lost and helpless. When I can no longer manage to flex the strength of my fertile soul and I find myself fallen. Weak. Tearful. Helpless.
Am I faulty? Am I flawed? How can I fall apart so easily? Why does it happen so quickly? It seems I hardly remember to breathe before the air is sucked from me. Before I can even fight back. Before I can figure out how to stop it. Tears swell my heart and I am rummaging for a way to steady myself lest I shake free of consciousness. Of the knowledge that everything is okay in the end. Of the knowledge that this moment will pass. That my broken pieces will return to their rightful places with little more than setting my body in motion again. With wiping away the tears and turning my back on the anguish of that one small moment. So small.
A moment when my partner in this life will choose to leave the toddler undressed because he won’t want to rifle through a basket of clean, folded laundry to find a t-shirt. He’ll want the clothes in the drawer where they belong. A moment that will make me thirty minutes late for work instead of fifteen because I will have gotten upset over the undressing. The undressing which will frustrate me and for which I will scowl. A scowl that shall give my husband reason to leave the house with no words of goodbye. A quiet exit which will upset me even more and cause the tears to run across me. Tears of being overwhelmed by all that needs doing.
Through it all the toddler will remain undressed. And I will scramble to the doing of the dressing. And the talking, pleading, coaxing that is getting out the door on a Tuesday Morning at 8:45. Because there is no choice. Because life…it goes on. And so must I. Breakable or not.
I know it is a much bigger life than who puts the clean laundry away. And who sweeps the floor of my home. And who organizes dinner plans and keeps track of the soccer schedule, but these things catch us. They pile up and they catch us. And I admit that it amazes me how the smallness of life brings about such a flourish of emotion. It brings tears that cannot be anticipated. It brings broken moments.
Despite this I know I am eternally strong. I know that one broken moment is just that. A moment.
I know there is no balance to it. There is no need for me to believe that balance is even possible. If I had all the time in the world I would still believe that pondering how to balance the tasks, thoughts and emotions of my life is moot. Defeats the point. That living is still the biggest lesson. That we find our footing whether we want to or not. That admitting we are vulnerable is the most certain way to gaining strength in heart and soul.
Read More in Best of 2009, chores, fatherhood, housework, motherhood, relationship, Sarah Writes, Sarah's Favorites, three kids
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I haven’t even read this yet, Sarah, but have to say I LOVE INGRID!!!
Beautiful words.
My husband refuses to do housework after work. We both work too so I completely feel the unbalance. Am I really supposed to work 45 hours AND clean, do laundry ( I don’t think it is EVER all been put away!), make dinner and so on. Saturdays, SOMETIMES, he will help but it tends to be the minimun. He thinks entertaining the child, which does help, is enough. I want to just play while he cleans.
Struggling to find balance is hard, and at least you acknowledge that. You don’t have to have perfect balance, just enough balance so you don’t fall!!
Yes. Enough balance so I don’t fall. But wobbling is okay. I wobble a lot.
My husband contributes in enormous way to the household. He cleans, he organizes, he does stuff. Lots of it. But there is a distinct difference between his mindset about the stuff and my own. And it causes a rift. And I’m pretty sure it always will.
Sigh.
Most days I am okay with it. But the other day. With the laundry. And the little boy running around the house naked. And my hair in desperate need of a hair dryer. That day I was NOT okay with it. :)
You’ve done it. Truth. Emotion. Reality. The hard hard stuff about living. Day to day. The life that you chose to lead. Even though you didn’t choose it. You chose to keep it. Pursue it. Make it yours. And it’s so so difficult. The minutiae that gets in the way. And piles up. And up. And up. Until someone walks out the door without saying goodbye. And the laundry that was folded (but not put away) is thrown across the room, by someone, and still not put away.
I feel you. I hear you. I struggle the same. (You know that I do.)
Keep writing it out. There is meaning in the writing. Even if the tasks themselves, the broken moments, feel meaningless. Lonely. Empty.
You are full. Of words. And wisdom. And talent.
I read this in the car just after we spoke. I cried my eyes out. Thank you, Sister. Thank you.
I read your words earlier, Sarah. Now I have come back and read them again, along with the responses – particularly the one from your sister.
You are so brave and so bearing your soul to all of us.
The day-to-day stuff in life is what will eventually be the downfall of all of us. It is what usually breaks the camel’s back so to speak.
Keep on keeping on. We are all here to support you should you need it!
Yes, yes, yes. This piece just hummed with truth and meaning for me. You know that I’ve been thinking about these same issues, really struggling with them, and reading your words – especially this, “I know there is no balance to it. There is no need for me to believe that balance is even possible” – opened up a window for me that I now need to spend some time looking into, and maybe out of.
Thank you, Sarah, for these words, today of all days.
There is a post in me somewhere about that elusive word “balance.” How I abhor its modern day use. How very unattainable it is and yet how we obsess over seeking it. The inimitable work/life balance.
I need to free myself from that thinking, lest I forever title myself a failure. I cannot do it all. And I know I am not a failure. ISo ‘ve just learned to widen the parameters of what kind of messes I’ll allow in my life–both mental and physical–and it helps. Mostly. Sometimes?
A tapestry of truths. A whispering of longing. A cry from the struggle that is at once so personal and so universal. How do we embrace the clutter and chaos in our hearts and homes day after day? I don’t pretend to know. But here, in this place of not knowing, I am reading and nodding.
Oh, yes. I am sitting here with tears streaming down my face – so gorgeous and so true.
What’s truer than this?
That living is still the biggest lesson. That we find our footing whether we want to or not. That admitting we are vulnerable is the most certain way to gaining strength in heart and soul.
Nothing I’ve read recently. Thank you.
Thank you, Lindsey. As always. I thought of you as I wrote this. It felt so incredibly emotional and I think reveling in and revealing the softer sides of our soul is something I associate with you.
Living gets harder and harder as the years wear on. And there is no one else to do it for us. But our capacity for joy changes and grows. So in the end, I think we are freed by aging. We are fortunate for the passing of time. And we are wiser for it. Strengthened by it.
But, ask me in 10 years and I’m sure I’ll argue passionately with that thought. :)
It’s so true that it’s the little moments that finally break us (and yes, we’re ALL so breakable). I think women corner the market on guilt and duty, which is why men can sometimes walk away from these small tasks without a backward glance.
I think I see my husband broken by the small moments as well. It just takes such a different form. Anger, first and foremost, where I exhibit silence or tears. And the few times I have really seen him brought to his knees–vulnerable and weak–as a result of our day-to-day, well, those are the times I remember over and over again. They stick in my memory and I can’t imagine ever forgetting them. I need those reminders that my husband is affected by the same struggles I am, even if he exhibits it differently. Even if he chooses just to walk out the door.
I just deleted a very very long comment because I literally just reiterated everything you wrote. So, Bravo Sarah for writing this. For writing these words that I could not agree with more. I am more than breakable actually. I have come so very close to breaking. No one really knows HOW close except me because I don’t speak up about it but if it weren’t for the two little people in my house who are joyful reminders as to why I keep at this job, I certainly would have broken already.
I am right by you in this. It’s a post I need to write one day but can’t find the courage. So thank you for doing such a great job and getting me to think more about the words i need to write.
Becca,
First of all don’t delete any part of your comments. I want to hear everything you have to say. And yes, there are so many words we all need to write. But they take time, and patience and bravery. Mustering all three at once is a huge feat. Stay with us. We are creating a safe space for everybody to write when they need to just throw something out there without worrying about who will be giving them sideways glances in real life because they’ve read your blog.
I think you possibly spoke to every mother/wife/woman out there with this post today.
It took my breath away. All of it. Especially since my husband does the same thing with the laundry…. makes me batty…
To be quite honest, it is the small things…the Hot Wheels cars strewn all over the house, the dishes that never seem to end, the trying to get out of the house on time each morning…it is this minutae everyday that drives me crazy. Some nights, after I am done picking up the kitchen, I turn and realize I have forgotten the placemats…they are still dirty, still on the table. And I swear, I nearly have a breakdown.
Oh, Sarah. Just: oh.
I could comment, I could talk, I could go on. About how much we contain within ourselves and how overwhelming and beautiful and ugly those self-contained contradictions are and how amazing your words are.
But I won’t. Because, just: oh.
With you. Truly, Madly, Deeply.
But jealous that you can convince yourself that you are more than clean laundry.
This is gorgeous.
Repeat after me:
I am more than clean laundry.
I am more than clean laundry.
I am more than clean laundry.
I am more than clean laundry.
I am more than clean laundry.
I am more than clean laundry.
Good. Now go make a pie. Or lasagna. Or some pasta with melted butter. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.
Maybe it’s okay to be breakable. Maybe it’s okay to be resentful. Maybe it’s okay – more than okay – for your husband to read what you have written here. To know with certainty that he is loved but that certain things he will not do accumulate, and their hourly, daily weight builds. Maybe it’s okay – better than okay – for the two of you to talk about that, and try to shift even a small task here or there so the daily weight of that resentment builds less.
I’m just gong to say it. Even from the far end of the spectrum where you find yourself on your journey, even with just one teen left in the house to parent, the daily tasks are constant and unrelenting and exhausting. Differently. Not just because I am a single parent – just because parenting is an unrelenting set of tedious tasks that require physical strength and emotional depths and juggling with relatively few (or no) breaks. Something none of us conceives of when we begin.
None of that lessens the joy, but in my experience it is – generally – the women who compromise their jobs and careers outside the home by being the ones to arrive late due to an undressed toddler, or leave early because a child has fallen off the monkey bars and needs to be brought home, or a hundred other things that happen tens of thousands of times daily, across this country.
And it breaks us. We are breakable. We are chipped, cracked, worn down. And in my experience – with one exception (both parents had careers but the dad did the lion’s share of parenting for one child, along with a maid and a nanny) – it is the woman who tends to the daily details and is generally the one who “cleans up.”
What is interesting is how the dynamic changes when couples break up, and fathers (in some instances) take on a partial or more than partial “daily load.” It is like watching an awakening. And having dated some of these men, they speak of it – how they simply never realized the constancy of tasks, details, compromises, worries – until they were on their own with one or more children – even for every other week.
We are breakable. And we break. And we are broken by others, by silences and resentments. By exhaustion, each day. I’ve spent the past 5 hours standing and milling about and then driving and then sitting beside my son as he drives (only the second time at night), and there will be more driving in two hours and all I want to do is scream I’m exhausted but there is no screaming. Only getting up each day and parenting in whatever domestic arrangement you are in.
And the wondrous thing about being breakable – vulnerable – is sometimes it is the way for the people we love to see that they need to pitch in a little more. And we also find that be are not irrevocably breakable. Because where there is a solid foundation, there can always be small repairs before the mountain is too great. And where there are children, we repair ourselves as many times as needed, because they are our hearts. And don’t leave our toddlers with their runny noses and undressed, and we may scream, or throw laundry, or stew ini silence, but we are not irrevocably broken. Because there’s work to do, and we get back up and just do it. And that work is the daily structure of loving and family, and we just do it.
I hope you stuck your computer screen under your husband’s nose and said I love you, but this breaks me, and I very much doubt that he wants you in any way anything less than the person you are.
Fatigue weighs on every marriage, especially with small children. You are in good company, and we all wish we could give you a hug, and let you know you aren’t alone.
I called my husband moments after he walked out on me chasing a naked toddler. I was in tears. I was spilling words trying to capture the mountain of frustration that is our morning routine. He sat in silence. I couldn’t wait for a reply so I let him go. I dressed the toddler. I loaded the kids in the car. I probably talked to Jen on the phone. I made it to work.
Dan called me moments after I settled into my desk chair. He didn’t want it to be like this. We agreed that I would wash and fold the laundry and he would put it away. And while this arrangement is yet to be tested (stay tuned for Sat/Sun laundry days), I am grateful that he is at least able to understand that I need his help. That I can’t do it all. However, I absolutely despise having these conversations. About these itty bitty things that suck up so much of our time and our mental capacity for OTHERNESS.
Of course, the meaning of the message of being breakable is about much more than the laundry. But YOU know that. And your words make me less so this morning.
We are so lucky to know that we are not alone in this never ending world of chores. This is the part that they don’t tell us about as we grow up wishing for this, a family.
If only we could put aside the monotonous tasks for a day without it growing into an uncontrollable monster.
But there is a solution and that is communication and enlisting the family to help and to give them control over their own messes.
A chore chart helps, if you follow it diligently.
I had one of these small moments last night. And then again this morning. I just feel so fragile and broken and alone and all emptied out. Life is hard. I am strong, but I’m also not. I need someone to always dress the kids even if the clothes are in laundry baskets. Always. Because that’s how hard life is. Even if it’s not that hard.
Uh huh. I’m totally at the end of myself, still sick with the stupid swine flu and it’s sucking the life from me. So yeah, I really GOT this post and appreciate you so much for speaking my heart.
This? ‘it amazes me how the smallness of life brings about such a flourish of emotion’ is so true. This post was so heartfelt and honest. And so relate-able to so many.
Sometimes I want to take the day off. To completely slack on all of the small stuff. But you know what? It just keeps going, so we either run out of food or clean underwear or whatever and I think SHIT this just doesn’t end!!!
It is hard. And I actually have a partner who perhaps pulls more weight than I do (maybe), but it.is.hard. to keep up with it all. I have been known to yell I NEED A SUB!! But the freaking coach never listens. (i don’t think there’s even a coach. or a half time. we just keeeeeeep on going.)
Anyway, this was a great post, and it was nice to pop over here and see so many familiar faces in the comments section. I need to get over here more often.
I’m a newcomer to your counterpoint on this blog, so forgive my chutzpah.
I so agree with what BLW wrote above. Negotiating these conversations, about apparently small things, is like a deposit in a communications bank account. If you weather those, which it sounds like you do, then when you have to make some big choices, you are more likely to be able to do so.
I have a friend with whom I chat now and again. Pretty much each times he writes he is sad about his marriage — and I think, in part, it’s because he hasn’t recently put some of his hard-earned currency in the joint deposit box.
The fact that you choose to do so is a good sign. It seems odd, but from my perspective as a middle-aged woman who has done a fair amount of marriage counseling as a pastor, those difficult conversations actually make a marriage better. Ask for what you want. Hear what he wants. You guys may meet, somewhere in the middle.
Sarah,
I just stumbled onto your blog for the first time tonight… I’m not even sure how I found you but there are so many things that you have written that I needed to read. I have the privilege of being called mom by 3 girls. They are 4, 2 and 5 months. My husband works long hours and travels frequently. And just to add icing to chaotic cake that is our life our youngest daughter has a very rare metabolic disorder that necessitates long hours of various types of therapies, surgeries and Dr’s appts. I am blessed beyond measure in all aspects of our life but lately breakable is exactly how I feel. Like the slightest breath or tiny breeze could shatter me into a million pieces. Except shattering is never going to be an option….
Thanks for writing so honestly , it helps to know that there are others out there ….
Crystal
Decades ago, a woman was expected to be financially dependent on a man, hence she was stuck with him. Fortunately, that has changed, and many women nowadays have their own “purse.” If a woman has a savings account and is capable of earning a good living, I don’t understand why any woman would stay with a man who does not pull his weight in the house. In my opinion, once the chilren are grown and the woman has a lot more free time to have her own earnings and own career, I say “go for it.” I suspect that there are many older women out there who, like me, would be much happier if the bums would just move out, and take most of their stuff with them.