Princess Wah Wah Weighs In
I want to do 10,000 handstands. I want to stand outside the grocery store and yell at people to go home and stop killing with their physical out and about-ness. I want to throw the chocolate-encrusted waffle iron at Mike and tell him that if he volunteers to make Ax breakfast please clean it the eff up too or don’t bother.
I want to be bad, like really bad. Like lose it on everyone bad. Like tell my parents to please stop sending suggestions for educational activities for Ax and apocalyptic articles for me to read. Like call my cleaning person and tell her I don’t care if we fatally cross-contaminate each other, my inner Princess Wah Wah has done enough cleaning forever and screw it, just come. And not only am I of course paying her for all the time she hasn’t come I’m giving her a raise. A big one. Like, anything she wants.
But she will stay home, because we will tell her to and pay her to, and after Mike reads this I will beg him to please keep making Ax breakfast even if he can’t clean up.
Then I’ll tell my parents thank you for their email offerings because I know they are signs of love and not meant as pressure. And I do love them.
There is an avalanche of need and an avalanche of self-loathing both falling on my head simultaneously. Inner Knowing says: Too many people to help while taking care of myself and my family.
Inner Critic Evie says: Get off your lazy ass and help a non-techie get online. Set up a delivery service. Make a how-to video of something. Educate Ax.
Princess Wah Wah says: I need twelve bags of chips, a home-facial, and an entire season of something, anything, before I interact with anything or anyone.
Who wins? Me. I win. Grown up me. Sascha me. I know it’s a good time to slightly challenge myself to do a bit more for others. Reach out a bit more, virtually.
And it’s a good time to remember why I’ve chosen to manage my life as I have — so I can be okay. Remember that feeling balanced and okay is a worthy goal. That it is a lot to simply lose 7 hours a day of childcare and the ability to play date and the space of having time alone in my home. It just is.
And I say that even as I know I am absurdly, bizarrely, incomprehensibly lucky. There’s a lot of change right now and change is not easy for me.
The first couple of days the “voluntary physical self-isolation” felt pretty good. I had thoughts like, “Compared to the mudslides we’re in great shape! We have electricity, water, heat, Netflix. This is awesome!”
But now, day 10 or so, I’m kinda ready to be done. I need a wax and we’re out of greens.
But we’re not done.
We are far from done. So I gotta — I get to — do whatever it takes to get out of this funk. Less something. More something else. Or maybe not quite that much of that. It’s a grand experiment, this living. New rules, same game. Help myself. Help others. That order. I’m gonna keep going.
www.livingeveryminuteofit.com
Love to you and yours. And please physically isolate. Please.
