Hamster Wheel Rant

Sometimes we get so caught up in WHAT NEEDS DONE and WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO that we get bogged. You spend your days doing something along these lines (change it up as it fits you... no two puzzle pieces are exactly the same but the formula is pretty solid) :

You wake up to the buzz of an alarm. Reaching over and bitter due to the loss of dreams, you slap the snooze bar and wish you could sleep one more hour. That one more hour would make the day so much better. But you think..."I have to get up and go to (fill in the blank here. Work. School. Get the kids ready. Something along those lines.)" But what you want is that other hour.

Five minutes later, it buzzes again and you roll out of bed and head off to (shower, get the kids ready, drag on clothes, chug coffee... etc.).

Off you go to do (what ever it was that you had that alarm set for) and wish that it was your day off from (whatever it is you are off to do.) Unless you are a stay at home mom and then you wish for the weekend when things "slow" down. (They don't. That, too, is an illusion. You have to drive to soccer practice, cook three meals, get that laundry done you did not have time for during the week and fit in family time... so the "slow weekend" isn't going to happen.) You do it for (however many) hours and then come back and (eat, feed kids, do homework/help kids do homework, work your second job, etc.) and wish for the comfort of that bed you left.

Eventually, you get to go back to sleep and do it again tomorrow.

It is a hamster wheel. And at some points you afford enough money to buy (that car, that ring, that vacation, that thing...) you have been working so hard for and find that (the car requires gas and has high insurance, the ring is uncomfortable but looks great, the vacation leaves you more tired than your day to day life) so you get back on the wheel to earn (that other thing that is better than what you have.)

And while all this is going on, we complain that the weather is too (hot, cold, wet, dry...) and we wish we were (anywhere but here.) We are STUCK in our job/life/relationship and nothing can change that.

Well, nothing can't. Continuing to do nothing will change nothing. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. If we go by said definition... Are you insane?

Nope. You are just doing what you are supposed to. What is expected of you, and why wouldn't you when it allows you to "fit in" and be like "everyone else." What no one says out loud is that they are all wishing they were doing what they wanted, too. But they are afraid.

Fear. We fear rejection. We fear sticking out. We fear people laughing at us because we are different. We fear that we are going to be alone.

And so we make ourselves alone to protect ourselves from all of it. We become as beige as possible and fit in and wish...

Well, I love it when someone looks at me and tilts their head and says, "You're weird."

Why, thank you.

And all of this rant was brought to you because my baby looked at me today and said, "But I am trying to be like everyone else so I can have friends. People will like me more if I act like them."

I blinked and my heart broke a little. Can't people love him because he is the one and only Ash? Is that why Justice tries so hard to be a mean girl this year and last year she was a sweetheart? To be what they are "expected to be" rather than the wonderful people they are at heart just to "fit in."

I want a world where they aren't afraid. All I can do is continue to be very me. And show them that people like me as me and that you can be whatever you want and people will like you. Also, I have got to stop the "I am supposed to" mindset.

I am supposed to do what is right. If what I am doing does not feel/seem to be the right thing... then I don't have to do it. We only do what we choose. Choose wisely.