My friends, I stopped doing my house work.

The dishes from New Years Eve sat in the sink until January 5th.

I walked over the same small plastic straw wrapper umpteen times without any regard.

I devised a special laundry system that involved leaving all clean laundry in baskets . . . unfolded. When I had enough time, I folded four to ten baskets of clean laundry. I told myself that the sheer weight of all the clothes folded and piled on top of one another would press out the wrinkles. This process truly upset my type A friends. In fact, it truly upset me.

All of this short cutting and shrugging responsibility made me feel worthless.

The food in the fridge was not the usual selection. Meals weren’t planned rather they were thrown together somewhere around 5pm. My children were being fed, but mostly by their own actions. At 10 and 8, that seemed reasonable to me.

I was writing, but not creating. I felt like I switched on the auto pilot of my life when my father was hospitalized. And although I believed in self-care and being kind to oneself, those luxuries seemed senseless. The man was dying.

In the same moments I thought, I should be able to push through. Push pass the upset and anxiety. Pause in the discomfort and stay present, but all I really did was scroll for distraction and search for new shows.

My father was so helpless and fragile, and all I could do was pray. Cry and pray. I put off all that was around me until every time I turned around there was another thing to “catch up” on; bathroom trash baskets overflowed and Christmas decorations still up hung up throughout.

I was stuck between helpless and hopeless.

As a mother and a doer, I couldn’t separate the feeling of helplessness from the worthlessness, they felt synonymous.

What I have come to understand since I wrote the above is that I am allowed the space and time to feel all of it. Scared. Helpless. Hopeless. Worthless.

But I can’t forget, who I am is not equal to the work I do. House work, done or undone, does not equal the person or mother I am on any given day. Sometimes shit has to fall apart so I can be present for other areas of my life.

I am not required to show up and clean all things ~ as I may have previously believed.