Oprah says...

Today on Oprah, Maria Shriver was talking about her new book, “Just who will you be?” Somewhere in the conversation, Oprah said that it was important to take ten minutes everyday, to be silent with yourself. If you can’t do the ten, then you have to start with one. If you find yourself unable to spare even one lousy minute for yourself, then there is a problem that you need to fix. I think I am at that point. Proof you ask? Ten seconds after I turned off the TV, and closed my eyes in the darkened front room, I reached for the computer to start writing down my thoughts. Is this cheating? Can I have my silent ten minutes to myself, while writing my thoughts down?
I spend most of my day talking on the computer with Jay. In between his “one sec” time outs to go work, I scan eBay, or field calls and emails for either work, or FRG. I pick up the kids, cook dinner, watch TV yell at them to pick up after themselves, and veg in front of the computer some more. Every night, I go to bed, but I put on the television, and watch Charmed before I fall asleep to the sound of chicks vanquishing demons. That is pretty much the schedule every single day. Occasionally, like today, I baby-sit, or rescue someone from a situation that they are too helpless to fix themselves. As a matter of fact, that is my job as well.
I think I am coming very slowly to the realization that my life is meaningless to Stacy, and very helpful to everyone else. My kids really get the short end of the stick, because they are the ones that get fussed at if I am upset, or if I don’t feel well. Seems like I do not know anyone that doesn’t have a problem of his or her own for me to fix. I look around at my life, and realize that I have set myself up for this. Since my dad died, and I felt a shift in the power base of the household, I have become the problem fixer. I am the no bullshit tell it like it is fixer. I have been fixing everyone else since I was fifteen. I was a teenage single mother. I acted like an ass, but all along I never focused on my situation or myself. I had total faith that I would figure it out. I had no plan at all what so ever though. It never occurred to me to ask for help. Not once. I just trucked along. My mom did help, she babysat. She did not encourage me to go to college, she didn’t try to tell me I was nuts, she never yelled at me for getting pregnant. Not once. What was she thinking?
For the most part, I do not dwell on my feelings. I have a seemingly unique way of looking at myself. I always know when I need to vent, or when I really need to get help. I do not however, know how to come out and ask for it. A million times, I have mentioned that my feelings seem to be piling up, or that this situation sucks for me, or that I’m getting a little too angry, many examples escape my memory right now… I cannot blame my husband for not listening. He is more than 6000 miles away, and I’m sure that he thinks I am superwoman too, like everyone else does, and I am most sure that he is under the impression that if he told me to go get help I would laugh at him. Maybe I would. Or, maybe, if even one of the people in my life could look me in the eye, and say “I can tell, you need help” then maybe I would have the courage to cry on someone’s shoulder, instead of hiding in the closet. Maybe I would have the nerve to take ten minutes a day to think about only me, or should I say, actually think about myself.
I distract myself all day long. With TV, the computer, with work, with FRG meetings, babysitting, with rescuing everyone else. I need to demand from myself, ten minutes a day. No more waiting for Jay to talk to, no more eBay, no more TV at night, no more falling asleep at midnight, no more slacking on the housework, and no more not exercising. My body is screaming at me to stop being so stupid. I need to feel better, I need to stop being super woman, and I need to stop letting the only thing I do for myself be shopping, because when Jay comes home, and the deployment money is not coming anymore, I’m going to be screwed. I need to pick myself up, and take care of myself. I am the only person that is paying enough attention to me to know that I need help, So, I’m going to get it. I am going to say “NO” to people more, and I’m going to try my very best to be a better mom to my kids, who deserve it. I just wish they could help me by being better at helping me be better. I need to figure out how to motivate them to clean up after themselves, and I need to figure out how to not make it seem like I’m not checked in with them. I really think that Oprah’s one week challenge is an awesome idea, and if I can figure out how to tweak the rules so that I actually get some talk time in with Jay, and working on the computer during the day, from 9 am to 4 and no more than that, then I think it would be a breeze. Just enough to get back to basics. Well, that was my ten, actually, more like twenty minutes. Does this count?
Stacy
Sunday, April 20, 2008 11:42 pm