If Not Me, Then Who?

There is so much to carry, and the world is so heavy. Not just for me, for everyone. In addition to the weight of worry about my children, my husband’s health, my own health, my family’s health and needs—immediate and extended, money, contracts that I haven’t met my obligations to, the actual WORLD is so heavy.

I read a meme recently that said, “Sometimes you can get so busy trying to be everyone else’s anchor that you don’t realize you actually drowning.”

I’m tired, weary and sleepy. It seems everywhere I look there is discontent, atrocity, a lack of loving empathy. It seems there is more to fight about and disagree and divide than I ever knew was possible.

And I want to fix it all. I want to do all the things for all the people and still do all the things for all of me, and maintain my positive energy and go and go and go. Never give up, never surrender.

And then, I am frozen. Frozen from fear, overwhelm, dread, sorrow, confusion. In a brain that tends toward all or nothing, it becomes so very hard to learn to be temperate. To allow for the heartaches and the happiness to fill the same space.

How do we stop setting ourselves on fire to keep others warm? Today, this is my honest struggle, and I have no answers. It becomes hard to think, when one is tired, weary, and sleepy.

Still. If I don’t make dinner, who will? Who will do the dishes? Who will fight for my neurodivergent children, spouse, self and community? Who will write? Who will create? Who will ultimately raise me up, and my family with me, if not me? If I don’t do it, who will? And I still send my love out to the world, as it seems to me to be a weary world that I see.