Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Tiiiiiiiiimmmee Ain't on my Side. No it Ain't!

I have to tell you. I am exhausted! Seriously exhausted. Everything about me is exhausted. My brain is exhausted. My left ankle is exhausted. My nose is most certainly exhausted. Even my right earlobe is exhausted. I have exhausted intestines. My pancreas is very exhausted. The lower lobe of my left lung is exhausted. My blood cells feel quite exhausted. Even my mitochondria is exhausted. Do I have mitochondria? I don't know. My exhausted brain cannot remember anything I learned in college.

My exhaustion and sudden realization of said exhaustion causes me to realize that I have a question. And my question is simple. Here we go. How do people manage to wake up and make the bed and eat a healthy breakfast and get themselves together and go to work and travel to work and work an entire day and manage to drink enough water and maybe even eat lunch and accomplish everything they need to accomplish at their job and travel home from work and prepare and eat a healthy dinner and sift through junk mail and clean the bathroom and pay their bills and do laundry and exercise and spend quality time with friends and/or family and do something productive such as volunteer or finish an art project or plant a garden or read a good book or stay informed on current events or write their congressperson or read the damn voter's pamphlet and maybe even relax for a moment or two and then go to bed early enough to get a full night of sleep so the whole damn thing can repeat the next morning???

Notice the questioning punctuation. Because I REALLY want to know. And I really want to know how someone does it because I am -- as I have previously expressed -- incredibly exhausted in my attempt. I am also incredibly behind schedule. I am not "doing it" because I cannot seem to find the time to do everything. And maybe that's the problem.

How do we do everything. I know what you are going to say. You are going to tell me that one cannot possibly do everything and therefore one must make choices and prioritize the things of importance. But what if everything on the list is important? And the important things do not even make the list. What then?

There is all this talk about the decline of the family unit and blah blah blah. People are making a bigger "to do" than ever about what it means to be a family and how a family should be defined and what a family should be and so on and so forth. This isn't about any of those so-called conversations that are happening. But if it were about those conversations that shouldn't even be conversations I would say this. Get as many damn people as possible in the family to help with all this crap! Seriously people. This is a cultural SOS. How the hell are we supposed to find time to do all this crap? And what about people who have children? I cannot even imagine their lives. Granted they have chosen to procreate. They have made their proverbial bed. But seriously how do those people do it when I cannot even come close?

If I could afford it I would rent a wife. Someone who could do my laundry (and put it away!) A person who could prepare all of the healthy meals that I need to eat. I wouldn't even mind if they were prepared ahead of time and frozen. I would be fine with warming them up. Someone who could make my bed and clean the bathroom and make sure the mail is brought in and organized. Someone who could pay my bills when they need paying so I don't forget because there's nothing worse that having the money to pay a bill, but forgetting to pay it and then getting a late fee tacked on. Someone who could renew my car tabs and put more oil in ol' S.G. when she needs it. Someone who would gently remind me that I haven't been to the gynecologist in more than a year and a half and might even make an appointment for me to force me to go.

How much would I pay for this service? Well. This of course is the problem. Everything is becoming more expensive in the city. And wages are not increasing to match said increased expenditures. Unless of course you work for UNNAMED ENORMOUS TECHNOLOGY COMPANY or a similar high paying industry. But I do not. So what is the "little guy or gal" to do? I can't afford to pay someone to do even some of the aforementioned tasks for me. Living in the city is challenging enough. As it is I have resigned myself to the fact that if I want to remain in the city I will never be able to afford a house, townhouse, condo, or even a garage.

I am curious at the fact that we are expected to do more and more. I am also curious as to what this means with respect to our mental, physical and emotional health and well being. I wonder how our quality of life is impacted. And more than anything I would love to find a solution.

Not for the rest of you...for me. I've got enough on my plate!