Like Today, For instance.
Today I don't have it. To be honest, I didn't really have it yesterday either. I'm not 100% sure what it is, but likely, it's some combination of patience, energy to do things, and time to do them.
My celebration of Mother's Day was largely the receiving of the sweetest Mother's Day card known to mom-kind from my amazing kiddo, Ben, and then building a fort outside in the hammock using blankets and pillows and then snuggling in said fort for a ridiculously long portion of the day, shirking my responsibilities (like blog writing and laundry folding). I didn't have it that day either, and felt guilty about not doing much of anything, even though it was Mother's Day, and even though I finished editing a wedding for a wonderful couple!
The mother of a friend of Ben's messaged me the other day to apologize for missing Ben's birthday party. Her excuse? The had a house fire and are currently living in a hotel. A freaking house fire. And she's apologizing to me about missing Ben's birthday party.
Women do this to themselves Every. Damn. Day. Every day, we feel guilty for not doing more, not being more, not having unlimited emotional and physical resources to give to our loved ones, our friends, or hell, even strangers. We exhaust ourselves with a laundry list of expectations (pun intended) and work ourselves practically to death, or at least to illness. Speaking of illness, we secretly don't mind getting sick because it's the only time we can rest at least a little guilt free (maybe).
Recognizing this, I'd still be lying if I said I was going to stop. I'm probably not. And neither are you. But I can get a little more honest about it. Try to catch myself doing it a little more. Give myself a little more grace to have off days (yes days, plural). And I hope you will too.
And I know this isn't the world's best blog post, but hey, some days you just don't have it. And that's okay.
--Sam