Maybe This Is Why We Are Tired

“I don’t know why I am so tired.”   (Something my mama used to say.)

Now that I am older than she was when I first remember her saying it, I can guess why.

Maybe she was tired because she worked as a preschool teacher and was creative and got down on the floor with the kids even though her knees were cranky and it was sometimes difficult to get back up. (I had forgotten her telling me this, until my own knees started behaving in a similar way. When I get down to get the clothes out of the washer, to put them in the dryer? Or to clean the cat box? I am creaky, too. Just like she was, I guess.)

Maybe she was tired because apparently she was the only one in our house who knew how to prepare the food and clean up afterwards. When I was growing up, just about every morning, she packed a sack lunch for both me and my Dad, who worked as a sixth grade teacher. She also made the dinner, of course. My dad was a lovely man, but he was of a certain generation, and he did not help in the kitchen. My mom cooked his meals (and mine. And my sister’s, too, until she grew up and moved out. My sister was ten years older than me, so she was gone by the time I was a teenager). Sure, I helped with the dishes, rinsing the plates and loading and unloading the dishwasher, but that wasn’t much, and I didn’t cook.  To be fair, I am certain that my sister helped my mom a lot, certainly in ways that I didn’t see, since I was young and unobservant. I am lucky that I had my sister, who cared for me over the years, sort of a second mom for me, and my mom was lucky to have her, too.

Maybe my mom was tired because she did all our laundry. Paid the bills. Did the income taxes. Taught Sunday school for decades. Valued public service and served on the local water board, and the school board, and the grand jury, and just about any other board that needed help, though not all at the same time. She cared for my grandma, her mom, even though my grandma sent my mom away to live with her mother when my mom was in high school, so that my grandma could cavort with her older daughter (my mom’s big sister), and take a lover, who would eventually became my wonderful step-grandpa. It was good times for my grandma, but not so good for my Mom, who rightfully felt rejected.

Years later, when things were (supposedly?) better between my mom and grandma, my grandma and grandpa bought the house right next door to us, but then got mad about something, sold the house, and moved back to Oregon. Only to return to our town a few years later. Where they again got mad and went back to Oregon. I’m not sure how many times this happened, but I think at least three. There was always something my grandma got mad about.  In the end, my grandparents settled in our town, where my mom cared for my grandma until she died.

This must have made my mom tired, too.

Maybe she was tired because she struggled with her weight, and tried so hard to lose, but had to live with my dad, who had a crazily high metabolism and could eat just about anything and never gain. He was the kid who joined a fraternity in college and tried desperately to bulk up. He succeeded in gaining weight when he guzzled half and half and ate peanut butter by the container, but lost it all when he tired of those. My dad was famous at our Baptist church for the platter sized plate that he brought to potlucks. He would load it up, sometimes more than once. All the other men who had normal sized plates were jealous. My dad would occasionally pull my older sister aside and ask her if she could please figure out a way to help my mom with her weight? Which was something that, of course, my sister would not do. And which my mom would not have appreciated.

I’m thinking about my mom a lot, maybe because of Mother’s Day, and I miss her, but also because I just caught myself saying the same thing that she said so frequently when I was growing up.

I don’t know why I’m so tired.

It was beautiful out the other day, loads of light left, and the blackberries were growing inches by the minute, or so it seemed. I could have gone out with my gloves and clippers and done a little work, just 20 minutes! Or I could have gassed up the weed eater, loaded up some fresh string, and spent even a few moments out in the back. Of course, there were also weeds that needed to be pulled by hand. So many things I could have done.

There were also things I actually tried to do that didn’t go well. I tried to log into my blood donation account so that I could make an appointment, but the website was acting up and wouldn’t let me, so I called the 877 number, and the lady was nice, but a little reprimanding, even though I didn’t do anything wrong, and I was on the phone with her for 15 minutes, but was still not able to log into my account by the end of our talk.

I also had my normal list of things to do, which was not so different from my mom’s long ago list: go to the grocery store, buy the food, prepare the food, clean up the food, wash the clothes, pay the bills, do the income taxes. But this day? All I wanted to do was to sit on the red couch by Biscuit the wise, blanket stealing dog.

So that’s what I did, a little unusual for me, in the afternoon on a beautiful, sunny day. I sat on the couch and read Anne Lamott’s new book, Dusk, Night, Dawn which I had just picked up from the library. Later, I heated up frozen Costco meatballs for supper. It was fine. It was enough.

It was good to rest, to take a break, to remember that there will always be work to do, and that sometimes the best thing to do is not to do any of it.

Which is also a fine thing to think about today, on Mother’s Day.

So happy Mother’s Day to my mom, who has gone on, but who is still with me in so many ways. I understand now why you were tired. I am grateful for all the ways that you loved me. Happy Mother’s Day to me. And to all the women in my life (both young and old) who have mothered me, who mother all of us. And to the men who are mothers, and to the non-binary, gender-fluid folks who mother. Maybe we can all rest a little more, because time spent on a red couch with a good book next to a wise, blanket stealing dog is never wasted. Maybe we can learn to ask for help from the people we are mothering, because we actually don’t have to do it alone. And mostly, maybe we can better recognize and honor that we have very, very good reasons for, occasionally, being a little tired.