As I wandered out on my deck for my daily lunch break a few hours ago, I realized something. I haven’t been out of the house in a week.
Let me rephrase that. I haven’t left my house in a week. Sure, I’ve traveled out to the great wide somewhere to have my lunch and coffee on the deck. I’ve walked in my bathrobe down to the garden to fill the birdbath and bird feeders. Hell, I think I’ve taken better care of the damn birds than I have myself this week.
I’ve crashed. Full on crashed.
My depression, which I write about ad nauseum, is in full swing. And it ain’t pretty. I don’t write about that much. I don’t go into detail what it looks like. I could go on for days about what it feels like, but I honestly don’t want anyone to see what it looks like.
This time, that bitch really snuck up on me. I mean, she really hid in the shadows so I never saw her coming. And this time, she means business.
I’ve had spells where I haven’t left the house in a few days, but never a week. The four walls start to close in on me and I lose my mind. This time, I am in such a hole that I can’t even see the four walls.
We, as women, put so many expectations on ourselves every single day. We define ourselves in relation to others and lose track of our relation to the most important person, ourselves. We’re mom to our children. We’re wives to our husbands, daughters to our parents, employees to our boss. But, who are we to ourselves?
Why can’t I answer the question of “Who am I?” without answering it in one of those terms? And there lies the reason this bout of depression has come on and hit me so damn hard. I’ve totally lost track of the woman I am and what makes her happy. Hell, I don’t know if I’ve ever met her. I’m so busy being everything to everyone that she gets cast aside.
I recently quit my job and started two businesses. But, like everything else in the world, these things take time. And I don’t want to wait. So, I put these high expectations on myself and think I’m a failure because I haven’t met them. I haven’t added enough clients to my coaching business. I haven’t gotten 10,000 followers on my Facebook page. I’m not famous and sitting with Oprah on Super Soul Sunday. I haven't lost the 100 pounds I wanted to. By damn it, WHY?
These unfounded expectations that women put on ourselves and that we hold ourselves to on a daily basis are completely irrational. But, we keep doing it over and over again. And we allow these unrealistic expectations of who we should be, make us feel like failures.
We get so caught up in what we didn’t do right that we never look at what we actually accomplish. And what we do actually get done is pretty damn amazing.
I started two businesses and work hard on them every day. I take care of my two elderly parents that live with me. I raised two extraordinary young men that are both ensconced in top colleges. I have a successful loving marriage. I’m a published writer.
And the past seven days, none of that has fallen by the wayside. I still take care of my parents. I still am a wife to my husband. I still handle emergencies from a distance for my boys. The one that gets set aside is always me.
So, I think it’s time that all women out there finally look at themselves and find out who they are in relation to themselves, and celebrate the things we do and not punish ourselves for the things we don’t. I think it’s time that we stop looking at our shortcomings and just be the beautiful badass females that we are.
We need to take care of ourselves like we do everyone else. We need to be kind to ourselves.
And we can give ourselves permission to not be okay. We can fall apart and crash if that’s what needs to happen to allow us to rise up again.