booandbunny

Have to: Pay bills; Tend to Spring duties such as scrubbing/weeding/pruning.

Need to: Make some headway on a story assignment due in one month.

Want to: Take a long walk on the neighborhood trail, scrapbook next to the open dining room window while listening to hubby try to get the kids up and running on their bikes in the cul de sac.

The havetos are the things in life that can only be avoided for so long. I am very good at avoiding them as long as possible. I hate my checkbook. I hate doing laundry, although I hate it less than I hate cleaning bathrooms. (By the way, I hate the word hate, but it is the shortest linguistic route to the dreadful mood these jobs bring over me.) These things I can avoid until, like dust bunnies on a hardwood floor, they tumble across the room at me one day and say “Haha! I won again! I am now too big and too menacing for you to avoid. You HAVE TO take care of me today.” And, once these mountains are made molehills, my mood is brighter.

The needtos are an odd combination of wants and musts, a neverland where responsibility and desire embrace. They are the things in life that need to be tended to, but don’t bother me so much as the havetos. I need to cook dinner tonight. I need to write that story on infusions. I need to help the kids with their homework, chores, etc. If I take care of enough needtos in a day I don’t worry about avoiding the havetos and then I sit down and indulge myself in the wanttos.

The wanttos are quite obvious, they are all the things I’d rather be doing in place of being responsible. They are the things I stuff inside because they seem too silly for a mom, for an adult, for someone who must balance her checkbook. And no matter how many wanttos I check off a list, whether it’s for a day or for life, this is the list that never seems to stop growing. And that just makes me feel greedy and selfish.

So I stop to ask myself “Where is the line between self nurturing and selfishness?” Because the more I tend to myself the more I feel I have to offer others, but do I push those I love to the edges some days in order to tend to myself? Isn’t that selfishness?

A person’s unbalance is the same as weight.

It’s so true. Anytime I feel one area of life not getting what it needs, I feel heavy, slothly, defeated. Unbalanced. So, the mail can’t go out today, so who cares if I pay bills? And I pull a few weeds each morning while waiting for the school bus, so it’s never one huge job. And, hey!, I cleaned the downstairs, so that’s that. Now I’ll scrapbook, listen to him with the kids and savor some of his fabulous grilled chicken for dinner. Here’s to keeping your balance.

// posted by HoBess @ 4/01/2006 09:15:00 AM