I Bought the Dream When It Was Being Sold To Me

 

Against all odds, I did everything I was supposed to do once I legally became an adult.

I did the school.

I worked late. Sometimes two jobs.

Got THE job.

I bought the house.

I got married.

I had babies (Okay, some of that ^^ is not entirely in order but I still did those things).

I climbed the corporate ladder so to speak. 

I started a business, and then another one.

I checked every single box society handed me, plus more.

And for a long time, I believed that if I kept checking boxes faster than they were presented to me, eventually I would arrive at this utopia destination called success.

I was a rebellious teen. I smoked, skipped school, lied about my age, hung out with older boys, experimented with alcohol and other things. I pierced my nose, my tongue, my bellybutton twice. To my parents dismay and horror, I got tattoos. It's hard to see the big picture when you're young. Socializing felt like the thing I was put on this Earth for. I wasn't particularly athletic, and I'm intelligent but I've never thrived in standardized learning environments. Socializing though, I was good at. I remember having to miss social events at times whether it was for work or being grounded or being on vacation with my family, and literally feeling like I was going to DIE. I remember the feeling well. I had the fear of missing out, times one million. (Now I have the joy of missing out lol). Needless to say, I got a lot of life experience and partying out of the way young, so when I became pregnant at 21, becoming forced to settle down was actually the best thing that probably could have happened to me at the time. There was a part of me that felt like I needed to dial in and prove all the people wrong who, rightfully, were concerned about me becoming a Mom so young. So it’s not farfetched to say that a lot of my accomplishments have been driven by wanting to prove people wrong.

I was the first, and in many ways I still am the first of my friends to experience major pivotal life milestones: I lost a parent first, I got pregnant first, I bought a house first, I got married first. And then, I got divorced first. In between all of that, I have done many other important things too. I've built a stable, thriving career. I've built additional streams of income. I have been there when my kids said their first words and took steps. I have kissed umpteen boo boos and done my best to be there for important moments. I have sat in the hospital while my friends have had their babies. I have made and maintained extraordinary friendships. I have lived a brilliant, full life. 

I am 34 and I have experienced so much. I have been blessed with so much. And yet I am increasingly finding myself so frickin' overwhelmed that I actually told a friend yesterday to re-ask me a question in three days: "I can't think about this right now, ask me in three days when XYZ commitments are behind me" I said to her in a brash and abrupt text message. Embarrassingly, her question was about getting together next weekend. 

Luckily, this was a day one bestie who knows me inside and out and knows that I isolate and become avoidant when I am overwhelmed. She will, indeed, ask me again in three days. And I will answer. All will be right in the world again.

That's the thing about feeling overwhelmed. Somewhere along the way, I confused achievement with fulfillment, and perpetuate the cycle of having too much on our plates, and then feeling bad about it, and then feeling bad about feeling bad about it.

Every milestone I hit came with another one waiting behind it.

Get promoted.

Buy the BIGGER house (stress about the increase in expenses that invites).

Have another baby.

Work harder.

Make more money.

Don't stop.

Oh and somehow you also need to exercise, eat healthy, maintain your friendships, have sex with your partner, get your hair done every 6 weeks, walk the dog, see the dentist, wait - do the kids need dentist appointments? Did I get that estimate back from my benefits? Where is that email? Omg email..... I totally forgot about that email from the teacher about the last minute field trip interest survey. I can't log into School Cash Online to pay for that. That password recovery code isn't coming to my texts, and now I have a call incoming from WeedMan asking me if I want their services again this year. Can I afford that? And now I forget why I even opened my fucking phone. I have 91 unread messages on Instagram and they're all reels. 

I want to throw my phone at the wall. And I wonder when we became so overwhelmingly busy. 

The goal posts keeps moving, and I keep chasing it because that's what successful people do...right? Isn't that what BOSS BABES dooooo????????

Whether you're a Mom or not, you are likely:

Juggling parenting (and or co-parenting), a business, a house that constantly needs something fixed (or cleaned), endless emails, laundry that never seems to disappear, sports schedules, kid's social calendars, grocery lists, field trip forms, payments made,  and approximately 4,000 mental tabs open at all times. And just when you feel like you're going to combust, your dog eats a fucking Barbie or something sending your daughter into a tizzy and inviting a trip to the vet.

It's not that I don't love my life. But it is that I sometimes question if it is actually mine. 

I have a sickness called "Can't Say No". Its in the DSM V, look it up. 

I cannot for the life of me say no to all of the fantastic but also time consuming opportunities that keep presenting themselves to me. And on one hand, I know these opportunities come knocking as a result of how hard I’ve hustled. It would be silly, redundant, and futile not to take them. Examples of this would be securing spots at Board of Director tables that little Kait would be in awe over. Writing articles for real, published and reputable companies about topics that I am passionate about. Assisting with complex and fulfilling legal work in a pro-bono capacity outside of business hours, doing extras for my son’s baseball team. The catalyst to this post was actually Googling myself, to see how my accomplishments hold up on Page One. Because even in the face of all of those articles and accomplishments, I felt a little bit empty.

And then I realized......

I forgot to make the game day post.

These Board meetings have subcommittees and I can’t keep them all straight. I have one tonight and I couldn't remember what time it is. 

My kid needs a ride to his baseball game because I’m on the front lines of amalgamating two non-profits.

Never mind, the game got switched to an away game. He needs a ride to that too though. And someone has to watch my daughter while I do this other thing.

Guys…. I am exhausted.

And….I do regret believing there was only one version of success that exists.

I regret believing productivity was a personality trait.

I regret measuring my worth by how much I could carry.

I know many find the term GIRL BOSS cringey and cliché. But I have always silently strived for that. I am learning that this is a defence mechanism.

All the things I thought were girl boss, I am committed to quietly and slowly letting go of.

I don’t think my ambition was ever actually ambition. I think it was insurance.

"You're so driven."

"You do it all."

"I don't know how you manage."

…and my personal favourite “you’re so organized”…. LOL

For me, success stopped being about achievement a long time ago.

It became an insurance policy.

An insurance policy that no matter what happened in my marriage...
No matter who disappointed me...
No matter what life threw at me...
No matter how expensive a head of lettuce became……

My children would always have a roof over their heads.

There would always be groceries in the fridge.

Their registrations would get paid.

They would never know the panic that came from having to check the bank account before a Costco trip.

So I worked.

I took every opportunity.

I made myself indispensable.

If I could carry everything myself, no one could ever leave me with nothing. 

I would  never have to stay in a situation; a marriage, a job, that I loathed.

The irony is that hyper independence looks an awful lot like confidence from the outside.

People see a capable woman.

They don't see the fear underneath. It is fear, and we have to start calling it that.

The fear that if I stop producing, stop earning, stop saying yes,

Everything I've worked so hard to protect might disappear.

That’s why letting go feels so uncomfortable.

But it also feels fucking good.

I’m letting go of concert tickets I have that fall on my parenting time because I don’t want to feel guilty and rushed when I should be with my kids.

I’m letting go of a townhouse that I currently rent out to lovely people because life is so friggin’ expensive I would rather free up that equity to save and spend on my kids and our life.

I’ve started saying, point blank  “I cannot make that work as it falls on my only free day this week”.

No apology.

No elaborate excuse.

No scrambling to rearrange my life.

This is my goal this summer. To micro dose the word no.

For years I believed every "yes" made me more successful. Every yes gave me another notch on my resume.

The notches help with the feeling that I am not always the most educated person in the room. The rooms I frequently find myself in, I am actually usually, the least educated, but the old adage says “If you’re the smartest person in the room you’re in the wrong room”. So fuck off ego.

This is a lesson I have had to learn the hard way.

I still want to do many things, and being a parent is such that you will inherently just be busy. I’m just intentionally being more choosey. 

Maybe to say I bought the wrong dream is harsh. I do think dreams are meant to change with the seasons of our lives.

The dream I yearned for in my twenties was security. The security that marriage and a salary bring. White picket fence. 

The dream I need now is presence. Peace. Quiet.

Both are worthy.

But they each belong to different versions of me.