Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the fifteenth day of the month is "Volume."
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I make a lot of jokes about how there's instruction manual for being a grown up. How do you make the decision about when to junk the car, buy the new washer and dryer set, replace the sponge on the dishwand, get a dog, leave that terrible job, get married? Some people seem so confident, some people are confident, and some people are just flailing around.
Right now, I just want someone to hand me a list of instructions and tell me that if I do these ten things even if they're really hard, in six months, everything that is causing me stress right now will have worked itself out. But no one is going to hand me that list or write that adulting manual, so I muddle on.
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| We went to visit some friends on Saturday night and they have a blanket for Hannah that she immediately just made herself at home on. |
What is the thing you wish someone would just explain/make decisions for you?
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To see what Bestest Friend has to say about instruction, go visit her at Too Legit to Quit.
Parenting. It's where I feel the most guilt and the most pressure. I'm doing my best and the kids are great, but I also feel like somehow I might just possibly be screwing everything up FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE!!!
ReplyDeleteI also do get tired of meal planning. I do it and it's fine, but I remember someone telling me when I was a teenager how they got burned out deciding what to make for their family 3x/day and I didn't get it. Now I get it...
I 100% think that I would be institutionalized if I were a parent. So many choices and how can you possibly know what's best?!
DeleteYes, parenting. You might say "But there ARE instruction manuals for parenting!" There are a lot of books out there, but somehow you still feel like you're flailing. Even worse, when your kid is a baby you can't even fathom how you're going to navigate potty training, kindergarten, braces, sleepover parties, etc. etc. all the way up to COLLEGE. But then as each thing comes along you figure it out. I guess that would be the key to life as well- you can't figure it out all at once, but you'll be able to manage each situation as it comes up.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy because the issues/decisions become so much more important as children get older. I mean, I guess you're a more experienced parent at that point, but still. How do you learn what to do? Parenting, man. Tough job.
DeleteOh my stars, really everything if I could choose. What to clean the floor with and when to switch sponges and which trash carrier to go with and how to raise my girl into a good human and what to make for dinner every night and how to know how my dog is really feeling...
ReplyDeleteHa! If only our pets/non-verbal friends could tell us what they really need and want!
DeleteAmen. I always feel like this! I also always assume that "everyone" else knows how to do everything, and for some reason, I'm the dummie who has no idea. lol. I also seriously wonder what people did before Google and the internet existed!!! There are so many random things I Google to try to figure out.... I hope the Google search engine people aren't judging me. hahaha.
ReplyDeleteI would be terrified if I thought anyone at Google were looking specifically at MY searches. *sigh* Thank goodness for the wisdom of the internet, I guess.
DeleteOh, goodness, yes, I want a manual! Having to figure out all these things by myself is exhausting and overwhelming sometimes.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mostly want is someone to tell me exactly what to do or not do so I never got another headache. It's never going to be that easy, but I want it to be.
My doctor suggested magnesium and a vitamin b supplement would help my headaches and she was right! I hope you find something that works for you because having headaches all the time is the worst.
DeleteHannah is just so cute. I love her, all happy and cozy on HER blankie! What nice friends you have.
ReplyDeleteI wish someone would drop investing/money management knowledge straight into my brain. It causes me SO much stress. I just want someone to say, Do exactly this with your money and you will have enough to live and retire on. My dad is a big help, and has been successful in his own retirement strategy, so he offers advice... but he is quite a bit less risk averse than I am, and he won't do it for me. I just want to push a pile of money at someone and have them do the right thing so I don't have to think about it. (We did hire an investment person last year, so we did push some money at someone, and it has NOT alleviated my stress. Because now he asks questions about what we want to do and I have no idea. I mean, I have a BASIC idea, but it just all feels so foreign to me.) (This is an extremely privileged thing to have to stress about.)
And, like Jenny, I would love a manual about parenting. More specifically, I just wish there was someone who knew my particular child and her particular personality and could say, "Do THIS and she will grow up to be a well-adjusted productive member of society who won't need therapy because you screwed her up so badly."
Argh. Money management! Why are some people SO GOOD at it?! I am jealous of them.
DeleteFor me the golden rule is "move on when it's the better alternative to staying". Change is always hard, so it needs to be better than what you've got now. For example, my husband has a growing list of problems with his car, and in a perfect world he'd just get a new one. But it's a buyer market right now so the better alternative is for him to keep his car. Does this work every time in every situation? Of course not but it's all that I've got.
ReplyDeleteI guess I just have trouble making comparison between what I have presently and an imagined future. It's challenging to do the calculations with such imperfect information.
DeleteI'd be fine without a manual if things actually got easier as I got older. Allow me to tell you that This Is Not True. I thought all along the way that once I got older, Life would sort of smooth out and I could finally just relax: my parenting was done; my work life was done; my high-stress triggers were mostly gone.
ReplyDeleteFoolishly, I did not allow for the fact that Life Goes On, and because it does, Other Things take the place of the stuff I mentioned above. No manuals for these things, either. You are not alone.
As another friend above said, all we can do is our best at each moment, figuring it out as we go. The real key is to recognize that and move on, not beating ourselves up as we do so.
I did not need to hear that things don't get easier! Why not?! I want life to get easier at some point!! LOL. Well, thanks for the warning, my friend.
DeleteAn adulting manual would be nice! I have an incredible amount of stressful things coming up in the next six to eight months, all at once (I haven't talked much about it yet but I will) and I just want someone to come and hold my hand through all of it.
ReplyDeleteI wish you well in your big changes and know that you will make the right decisions for you and your family.
DeleteI am THE WORST for overthinking. I kind of wish that at a certain point in my thinking process, whether I was at the right decision or not, a little button in my head would pop up and say ENOUGH. Just PICK ONE. Or that once I make a decision, I would stop wondering if I'd made the right one.
ReplyDeleteYES! When we bought our house, we immediately had to stop looking at listings. I just want to be able to choose and never wonder if I've made the wrong decision. I'm with you on this character trait.
DeleteI definitely have a lot of decision fatigue from "adulting"... I am not someone who likes to make decisions, or at least not all the time, but isn't that was adulting is. Come on, Engie, be a nice person and write that manual - for all of us!
ReplyDeleteHa! If I wrote the manual it would say adopt a dog and everything else will fall into place. Ha! If only that were true!
DeleteMaking decisions is the hardest thing for me! I would do well with someone helping me to make all of the decisions, like how to spend/invest my money, what to eat, how to better manage my time, etc. Yes, please!
ReplyDeleteRight? I sort of wonder if this hypothetical manual existed if I would bother to read, though. I mean, it sounds sort of boring?!
DeleteI often wonder how my parents figured life out. Did they feel just as clueless as I do? If they did, I couldn't tell. I badly need a manual on house repair and up keep and who to hire to fix what kind of issue. Especially one that has everything rated on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being "A two year old can fix it" and 10 being "Just pay someone." I just paid $175 for a plumber to unscrew my showerhead and tell me it's cracked. I feel like a manual would have saved me $175
ReplyDeleteOooohhhh...home repair is a HUGE one. How am I supposed to know if a leak is worth a phone call to a plumber or not? And how did people do any of it before the internet?!
DeleteI figure that most of those decisions, I get wrong, probably because there is no right answer.
ReplyDeleteWell, but if you make a wrong decision and just move on, you're probably in a better place than those of us making decisions and then STILL worrying about it.
DeleteLike others have said, my answer is definitely parenting. Am I doing this right? Is it this hard for others? Just me? But parenting is so different now versus our generation. Like I don't remember my parents playing with me all that much. I was the 4th of 5 kids, though, so I was just supposed to play with my sister. Now it is so much more hands on and involved - which I great and I do think my kids will someday look back and say they had a great childhood. But the high touch/hands on approach also makes for a very tired mama - but I try to be open about the fact that it's hard at times and I'm tired so others don't think I have this all figured out! I think if I felt like it was hard for most people, I'd worry less if that makes any sense!
ReplyDeleteYes, I can see how parenting would never get easier. It's hard when they're little because you're new at it and they can't talk and tell you their problems, but as they get older, it seems like the problems get more challenging and the outcomes more meaningful. I do not envy parents at all!
DeleteLife is like that. Sadly, no manual would work for each of us. Go with your gut.
ReplyDeleteI love that your friends have a Blanket for Hannah. My girls made those years ago; just cut and knot I think. So cute and clever!
I LOVE that these friends have this blanket for her. She just wanders around their house until she finds it and collapses on it. I think it's such a sweet thing for them to do.
DeleteIsn't everyone just muddling along?
ReplyDeleteMy rule is make a decision and then don't look back. I often throw up my hands on decisions like what takeaway to get, I think because I do all the meal planning sometimes I just want someone else to decide what we are going to eat.
Yes, I guess we're all just muddling along, but some people seem to be more confident in their muddling!
DeleteFood. Planning. Is. The. Worst. Preach it, sister.
Wasn't going to comment - because seriously, Anne, this post is like 40 days old - but this is something that is harder for me since my divorce. For the big stuff, I mean. You would not believe how much I am dithering about when to do my automatic payments for my insurance (Auto, Renters, etc.). DITHERING. I much preferred it when I could turf these decisions off on someone else - or at least discuss them with someone else. (That said, I could probably text my ex and get his opinion... and I might. Ha!)
ReplyDeleteI completely understand. There are some things I do not do at all (from paying the mortgage to the electric bill) and I honestly feel like I wouldn't even know where to start. It IS nice to have someone around to bounce ideas off of and it's probably a hard adjustment going from having that person to not!
Delete