The girls in my therapy group love to tell me that I’m not taking good enough care of myself. It seems to come up regularly, this concept of “taking care of oneself” and my deficiencies therein. And because I have known some of of these women for years I try hard not to gnash my teeth at them when we talk about it. Occasionally I am successful.
Thing is, I really don’t know what else to do. One of the group’s major hangups is that K. and I never get a babysitter to go out alone together. It isn’t like we never did. A while after E. came along we went away together for an entire week. (Telling you that I still feel guilty about that probably won’t further my case any though.) Once Z. joined our family life changed, and the babysitters went away mostly. Then R. came. Then we didn’t have babysitters any more at all, unless we had a hideous doctor appointment. Or a triathlon. But mostly no babysitters.
I see the babysitter issue as a symptom, not a cure. And symptoms, okay, well we’ve got them. Frustration. Ennui. Anger that all family members are not thanking me daily for a) washing the dishes; b) folding the laundry; and c) keeping them alive by feeding them 3 times a day. And the babysitter thing. A grocery list of symptoms. An issue that needs addressing. Caring for oneself. What that means.
I address this issue thusly: I exercise 30-90 minutes almost every day. I sew at least once every 3 weeks. I take a picture every day. I write blog entries. I go on Flickr.
Okay, even I can see that’s a pathetic list. Better than some of you, perhaps, but lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. And some of your are laughing. Or pitying me. Thing is, I can’t seem to find a way out of this. And honestly a lot of my inability to leave the children in order to “take care of myself” has to do with the fact that two of them are adopted, and they’ve already had one or two big abandonments in their short lives, and I just can’t add on to that. I understand that my thinking is somewhat convoluted and obtuse and I’m not stating my case very well and most everyone in my life is pretty certain that I am Just. Plain. Wrong. about this. I understand that. And I accept it. I know that some of you are thinking OBJECT PERMANENCE! and I know I haven’t even gotten to the whole leave-come back-leave-come back argument, although I do think about it quite a bit. Thing is, I’ve got some more work to do before I can act on any of it.
And the thing is, today there is no denouement. There is no plan. Today there is no end to this entry.