The other day, my husband offered to take our daughter to volleyball practice.
Let me repeat that.
My husband VOLUNTARILY offered to take our daughter to volleyball practice.
An activity that requires me to spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of time in my vehicle every week.
An activity that regularly forces me to rearrange my schedule, sit at Panera for hours and calculate how many hours of my life I’m going to spend driving around instead of accomplishing something.
An activity I have complained about.
Repeatedly.
And when my husband offered to take her?
I argued with him.
Yes.
You read that correctly.
The woman who regularly complains about being responsible for everything actually argued with her husband because he offered to take something off her plate.
Apparently, I have officially lost my mind.
Management has opened an investigation.
Unfortunately, the employee responsible for the incident is also the person conducting the investigation.
We anticipate some challenges with accountability.
Excuse Me, Sir. That’s My Responsibility.
Here’s the thing.
Matt didn’t ask me to take our daughter.
He didn’t complain about having to take her.
He didn’t act like he was doing me some enormous favor.
He simply offered to handle it.
And instead of saying, “Oh my gosh, thank you,” I immediately started explaining why I could do it.
I could take her. It wasn’t a big deal. I could make it work. I had a plan in place already.
Never mind the fact that making it work is practically my full-time job at this point.
He insisted.
I argued.
He stood his ground.
And eventually, he took her.
Which should have been the end of the story.
Except it wasn’t.
Because after he left, I felt weird.
Not upset with him. Not worried that he couldn’t handle it.
Just uncomfortable.
Because I’m the one who takes the kids places.
I’m the one who figures out transportation.
I’m the one who rearranges everything when something changes.
I’m the one who makes the schedule work.
And suddenly, I wasn’t.
Someone else was handling something that I normally handle.
Something I complain about handling.
Something I genuinely wanted help with.
And instead of feeling relieved, I felt like I wasn’t doing something I was supposed to be doing.
Apparently, I want someone to take responsibilities off my plate, provided they don’t actually take any responsibilities off my plate.
Perfectly reasonable. No further questions.
So What Did I Do With My Freedom?
Well, first I made sure the other two kids and I had something to eat.
Because obviously.
Then I sat down at my computer.
And wrote a blog post.
Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I actually enjoyed writing it.
I love writing.
I love taking the absolute circus that is my life and turning it into something that makes people laugh, think, or maybe feel a little less alone.
It’s one of the few things I do that’s genuinely for me.
But here’s what I realized afterward.
I didn’t sit down to write solely because I wanted to. I also felt like I needed to accomplish something.
I had unexpected free time. And apparently, unexpected free time is an emergency that must be addressed immediately.
It wasn’t even like writing was on my to-do list that day.
Nobody was waiting for the article. There wasn’t a deadline. There wasn’t some urgent blog-related responsibility demanding my attention.
I just had time.
And my brain immediately decided that time needed to produce something.
So I chose something I enjoy.
Which sounds like a good thing.
And in some ways, it was.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to have something to show for those hours.
Because what would have happened if I’d just sat on the couch?
What if I’d watched television? What if I’d scrolled through Facebook? What if I’d done absolutely nothing?
Well, apparently, that would have been a gross misuse of company resources.
Management does not recognize unallocated time as a legitimate operating expense.
All available hours must be assigned to an approved productive activity.
Exceptions require written authorization.
Authorization has never been granted.
I Don’t Hate Being Productive. That’s Part of the Problem.
Here’s where this gets complicated.
I actually like accomplishing things.
I love accounting. Yes, I know.
There are probably more entertaining hobbies.
But give me a financial discrepancy that nobody can figure out, and I will happily spend hours investigating it.
I love building systems. I love learning. I love working on Anchor Accounting Solutions. I love writing for Mom Leaves a Legacy. I love taking a complicated problem and figuring out how to make it work.
There’s something incredibly satisfying about finishing a project, solving a problem, or creating something that didn’t exist before.
And I don’t want to stop enjoying those things.
I don’t want to become someone who spends every available minute sitting around doing nothing.
That’s not me.
But I’m starting to realize there’s a difference between wanting to accomplish something and feeling like I have to accomplish something.
And somewhere along the way, those two things became so tangled together that I’m not always sure which one is driving me.
Sometimes I sit down at my computer because I’m excited about an idea.
Other times, I sit down because I feel guilty about not doing anything.
And sometimes?
It’s both.
I can genuinely enjoy the thing I’m doing while simultaneously feeling relieved that I’m not wasting time.
Which raises an interesting question.
Am I choosing to be productive because I want to, or because I don’t know how to give myself permission not to be?
I don’t have an answer. Management is still reviewing the evidence.
The To-Do List That Never Ends
I have a to-do list.
Actually, that’s adorable.
I have approximately seventeen different to-do lists scattered across various areas of my life.
There’s work. School. Bills. Laundry. Household responsibilities. Kids’ activities. Appointments. Volunteer responsibilities.Personal projects. Business ideas. Things I need to follow up on. Things I forgot to follow up on. Things that someone else forgot about until they suddenly became my emergency.
And then there are the things that aren’t even written down anywhere.
They just live in my head.
Rent-free. All day. Every day.
The problem isn’t that I don’t know how to accomplish things.
I’m actually pretty good at that.
The problem is that there is always something else waiting to be accomplished.
I can finish a project I’ve been working on for weeks. I can finally reconcile an account that’s been driving me insane. I can submit a school assignment. I can knock ten things off my list.
And I’ll be excited. I’ll feel accomplished. I’ll be proud of what I finished.
For approximately thirty-seven seconds.
Then my brain goes: Okay. What’s next?
Because there’s always a next.
Another deadline. Another responsibility. Another thing that’s overdue. Another thing that needs my attention. Another problem to solve.
And the list never seems to get shorter.
It just changes.
I cross something off, and three more things appear.
At this point, I’m pretty sure my to-do list is reproducing.
Without authorization.
Apparently, Nine O’Clock Is Too Early to Stop Being Responsible
Here’s something that sounds ridiculous when I actually say it out loud.
I feel guilty going to bed at nine o’clock at night.
Nine P.M.
As in, I’ve already spent an entire day working, parenting, driving, organizing, thinking, planning, and handling whatever nonsense life decided to throw at me.
And somehow, when I decide to go to bed, I feel like I’m doing something wrong.
Because there are still things that need done.
There’s laundry. There’s something I could work on. There’s something I haven’t finished. There’s something I could get ahead on.
There’s always something.
And if I go to bed, that means I’m choosing not to accomplish those things.
Never mind that I’m exhausted. Never mind that I have to get up and do it all again tomorrow. Never mind that sleep is apparently a basic requirement for remaining a functioning human being.
My brain doesn’t care. My brain wants to know why the employee is clocking out while outstanding assignments remain open.
Management has reviewed today’s productivity report.
The employee completed approximately forty-seven tasks.
Unfortunately, forty-eight remain outstanding.
Performance improvement plan recommended.
And the worst part?
I don’t even get into bed and immediately fall asleep.
I lie there thinking.
About what I didn’t get done. What I need to do tomorrow. What I forgot. What I’m behind on. What I should have done differently. What I could have accomplished if I’d used my time better.
Eventually, my medication kicks in and makes me sleepy enough that my brain finally starts shutting down.
But until then?
Apparently, the office is still open.
The lights are off.
The employee has clocked out.
Management is still conducting a performance review.
I’m Not Imagining the Consequences
I think this is the part that makes everything so difficult.
Some of the pressure I feel is completely legitimate.
If I don’t work enough hours, that affects our finances. If I don’t pay attention to bills, there can be real consequences. If I miss a school deadline, it matters. If I don’t get the kids where they need to be, someone misses something. If I let certain responsibilities pile up, they don’t magically disappear.
They just become bigger problems waiting for me later.
So when someone tells me to relax, take a break, or stop worrying about everything for a little while, I understand what they’re saying.
I really do.
But my brain immediately starts calculating the cost.
If I spend two hours relaxing, that’s two hours I could have used to catch up. If I go to bed early, that’s another hour or two I could have spent getting something done. If I take an afternoon for myself, what am I going to have to rearrange to make up for it?
And the frustrating part is that sometimes those calculations aren’t wrong.
There really are things that need my attention. There really are deadlines. There really are financial pressures.
But somewhere along the way, I stopped distinguishing between something that genuinely cannot wait and something that simply remains unfinished.
Everything feels like it should be done.
Preferably yesterday.
And if I’m not actively working on something, I feel like I’m falling further behind.
Which is a particularly fun way to live when you’re already behind.
I Don’t Know What Enough Looks Like
Someone recently asked me whether I ever reach a point in the day where I feel like I’ve accomplished enough.
Not that everything is finished.
Just enough.
Enough to sit down. Enough to relax. Enough to go to bed without feeling guilty.
And I realized something.
No. I don’t.
Because there’s always something else that needs to be done.
I can recognize that I’ve accomplished a lot. I can be excited about finishing something. I can even be proud of myself.
But that feeling doesn’t last very long before I’m mentally moving on to the next responsibility.
I don’t seem to have a stopping point.
There’s no moment where my brain announces: Congratulations. You’ve completed an acceptable amount of work today. You are now authorized to enjoy the remainder of your evening.
Instead, it looks at whatever time is left and starts figuring out what else could fit into it.
And if I choose not to do those things?
Guilt.
Because now I’m not just behind. I’m behind, and I knowingly chose to do nothing about it.
Which apparently makes the situation significantly worse.
At least according to the internal investigation currently being conducted by the least objective manager in the history of management.
Me.
The Problem With Finally Getting a Break
This brings me back to Matt taking our daughter to volleyball.
Because that little argument revealed something I hadn’t really considered before.
I spend an enormous amount of time wishing someone would take something off my plate.
I want help. I want fewer responsibilities. I want time that belongs to me. I want to be able to walk around Dollar Tree without checking the clock or wondering who needs me next.
But when someone actually gives me that time?
I don’t necessarily know how to accept it. I feel uncomfortable letting someone else handle something that’s normally mine.
And when I finally do have free time, I immediately start figuring out how to use it productively.
It’s almost like I don’t know how to exist without something needing to be done.
Which is a pretty uncomfortable realization for someone who’s spent the last year complaining about having too much to do.
Because maybe part of the problem isn’t just that everyone else expects so much from me.
Maybe I’ve become the person who expects the most from myself.
And I don’t mean that in some inspirational, you just need to change your mindset kind of way.
Because I genuinely don’t know how to change it.
I don’t know how to look at an unfinished to-do list and feel okay about sitting on the couch. I don’t know how to go to bed knowing I could have accomplished something else. I don’t know how to stop mentally calculating the consequences of taking a break. And I definitely don’t know how to convince myself that doing nothing isn’t automatically wasting time.
I can see the pattern. I can recognize the contradiction. I can even laugh at how ridiculous it is that I argued with my husband for offering to take our daughter to volleyball.
But recognizing something and knowing how to change it are two very different things.
So Where Does That Leave Me?
Well.
Apparently, doing nothing is not an option.
At least not according to the current operating policies of Hoskins Holdings.
I don’t know how to fix that yet. I don’t have a five-step plan for learning to relax. I don’t have a magical scheduling system that’s going to make my responsibilities disappear.
And I’m certainly not about to tell you that I’ve discovered the secret to work-life balance.
Because if I had, I probably wouldn’t be lying awake at nine o’clock at night mentally reviewing my unfinished laundry.
What I do know is that I’m tired.
Not just physically tired.
I’m tired of feeling behind. Tired of feeling guilty. Tired of measuring my days by what I accomplished and what I didn’t. Tired of feeling like every available minute has to justify its existence. And tired of being unable to enjoy the relief I’ve spent so much time wishing someone would give me.
I don’t want to stop being ambitious. I don’t want to stop working on things I love. I don’t want to stop showing up for my family.
I just want to know what it feels like to be done for the day.
Not because everything is finished.
But because I’ve decided I’m allowed to stop.
And right now?
I genuinely don’t know how to do that.
Management has reviewed the situation.
The employee has repeatedly requested a reduction in workload.
Management has approved the request.
The employee has refused to comply.
Root cause: still under investigation.
I’ve spent so much time wishing someone would give me a break that I never considered whether I’d actually let myself take one.