Prioritize Yourself

 As we celebrate Mother’s Day this month, let’s talk about the work women do around the house. It’s endless, right? Whether you have children or not, the bulk of the housework often falls to women. If someone threw a party for Mother’s Day, many of the moms probably helped clean up after their own parties. They may have planned the meal, bought the groceries, prepared the food, and figured out what kind of activity to offer to keep everyone entertained. We spend the days before holidays preparing and running errands, buying cards and gifts, making food beforehand and then having to hide it so it doesn’t get eaten by the time the event arrives. And then when it’s over, we’re left with the clean-up.

 When we have to do it all, sometimes we can find resentment building up. Why doesn’t everyone else notice what needs to be done? It can be especially frustrating when well-meaning partners say, “Just tell me what you want me to do.” The additional mental labor of making that list is the last straw when we want to scream, “Look around with your own eyes! See the things that need to be done? You’re an adult!”

 That emotion is completely reasonable, and doubly so when the day is supposed to be about you. It can be really difficult when we’re feeling overwhelmed already and now we’re doing more work so that someone else can tell us how much they do for us. To help combat this, here’s my suggestion for the weekend after Mother’s Day.

Take the weekend off.

This is your official permission to take a break. If you’re telling me that you don’t have time, I hear you. But if an emergency popped up right now, you wouldn’t put it aside to do the laundry, sort the mail, and clean out the fridge, right? You’d handle it, the same way you always do. So take that amount of time and have a break for yourself. The laundry, the dishes, and the mail can wait a couple of hours.

Tell your partner or your kids, “We had so much fun last weekend that this weekend I think we should just take a break.” Order pizza. Send the kids to play outside. However you make it happen, take at least a few hours for yourself to do something you really want to do, whether that’s sit by the pool with a magazine or hike a favorite trail. You spend so much time prioritizing others, it’s important to also prioritize yourself.

 Let’s admit that a day like Mother’s Day isn’t always as restful as we’re told that it should be. If we believed all the ads, heck, we’d expect to be awoken by a perfectly cooked breakfast in bed that we’d eat in silence without getting a single crumb on our white sheets before returning our plate to a perfectly clean kitchen. But we all know it doesn’t usually go like that.

Ads are not real life. Expectations are not reality. People are not machines of endless productivity and good cheer. So take a break, give yourself grace, and know that you’re not broken. No one can do it all, no matter what Pinterest says. You’re doing great, and it's okay to acknowledge that we can do a great job without doing all the jobs.

So get yourself a nap, because you earned it.