Blogmas: Exhaustion

How is it already setting in? It’s only day 13, not even a fortnight, and yet I am just…blah. I am so blah I got unnecessarily angry at Husband this morning on what was a really important day for him. Not because it was an important day, of course, but because I’m a little overwhelmed. And that’s really dumb because no one should be overwhelmed by Christmas. Christmas shouldn’t be an obligation, and that’s exactly what I said I wasn’t going to let it be when I started this whole thing.

But here’s the truth: holidays are almost always at least a little obligatory for women. In most cases we bear the emotional load of our relationships, or are at least expected to. And as a lifelong people pleaser, I have an especially hard time with this. I did all the shopping for Husband’s family and my own. When he tells me I don’t have to do this, I tell him yes I do because my options are either do the shopping or get blamed for the shopping not being done because it doesn’t really occur to most people that the male spouse of a hetero couple should be responsible for at least 50% of everything in a household, and perhaps even 100% responsible for tasks to do with his family of origin. So my real options are A) get it done or B) disappoint people and be seen as “that bitch,” and my chronic people pleasing gives me too much anxiety for B.

I’ve also been staying up too late recently. I realize I’ve probably never said this, but I get up at 4:30 on weekday mornings. That’s early! Husband and I drive together since we work really close to one another, and we leave by 6:30, so I use those two hours for yoga, showering, getting ready, cat care things, and sometimes a chore. Two hours goes by really fast, especially if you get distracted by your wordpress feed, but I’ve really come to be a morning person thanks to yoga. The only problem is, in order to get eight hours of sleep, I need to be asleep by 8:30. Not in bed, but a-fucking-sleep. My compromise is to have my Fitbit remind me to start getting ready for bed at 8:45 so I can be under the covers by 9:00. But if you have any idea when my last couple blogs were posted, you know that did NOT happen.

Also, I’ve got my period right now, so the fatigue could just be from how hard my uterus is working to slough out all these dead cells. Who knows!

Ultimately, I am tired. But not tired of Christmas. I’m still really pleased when I look at my tree, and I’m excited about upcoming plans. The biggest problem right now, I think, is that my house is a mess. There are boxes and receipts everywhere. It needs to be vacuumed and wiped down, laundry–clean and dirty–is piling up as well as dishes despite that I’ve hardly cook at home recently, and things just feel so disorganized! I know that I only truly feel relaxed when my house is clean and organized, and this is probably my problem. Oh woe is me to have such big problems, eh?

I wish I had a fun story to tell today or a project I’m working on, but really, I’m just getting by. I’m hoping to cook some soup this weekend, do some crafts, finish up all my presents and get this house in order for the final push, so maybe the next couple days will be more interesting. But for now, well, it’s 7:30 and I think I’m about to go to bed.