running

Dinner is prepped: kale chopped, chicken shredded, eggs separated, garlic and onions diced.

Laundry is mid-cycle.

Bills are paid.

House is... neat enough.

And now? To breathe. To veg?

No: Elias is awake, just now. He wakes up now saying "nooo" in a whiny voice. I understand. I say the same thing to myself every afternoon when he wakes up, and all I want to do is "noooo"thing.

My desk in front of me is full of things on the to-do list. A bag filled with a homemade paper mobile for Elias' room that needs to be strung up. An empty ceramic pot, to be filled with basil for my kitchen counter, someday. I've had it for a year. A book on gardening, with info that needs to be siphoned off by me for Jeremy to build some raised garden beds. Curtain rings, for the kitchen curtains. A knit hat that's come unraveled and needs some help from my own mom. And photo albums and E's first year book that need filling out. He's 18 months.

I would need to have the force of a tornado to get through everything on my list. Is this why women are so tired? Not only do they have the days and weeks behind them, to which their energy has already been directed, our will to survive shot like a garden hose at our days, but we have the should-have-dones. The wish-was-finisheds. The oh-gosh-I-forgot-about-thats. It gnaws at me... I imagine it gnaws at most of us.

I don't have an answer for it. I think it will be something I deal with until the day I die. I never understood the idea before now that there wasn't enough time in the day. There certainly is enough time in the day for a teenager, but for an adult? No: whether it's our own fault or someone else's, we just can't get finished.

Some days I have peace with this idea. But not today.