My in-laws bought plane tickets for my sons to visit them in Florida. They live down there for the first 2.5 months of the year. Though I miss my sons, suddenly I become as giddy as a 23-year-old with little to no responsibility. Exchanges between my husband and I went something like this…..
“We’re gonna fuck shit up!”
“We’re gonna party like rock stars!”
“I’m gonna do coke off a hooker’s ass!”
“Wait…..what?”
So that last declaration may have been a little embellished. But for those of you that have kids, when you don’t have them for more than 24 hours, you begin to make statements that are on par with a meth addict preparing not to sleep for 48 hours……
Let’s paint our bedroom
I want to clean out the garage
I’m going to organize all my mail so I’m not labeled a hoarder
I’m going to do a full body exfoliation
In Reality
I’m trying to be mindful of this “do everything” mindset as we go into the weekend so I get something accomplished. In reality, here is what happens. Saturday morning we will sleep in till 10 a.m. because we stayed out late the night before (9 P.M.) watching the new 50 Shades of Grey. At 10:30 C will take his place on the sofa to watch sports until around 6 P.M. His day is done, off to my day. I will start blogging as soon as I get up, but only after I make myself an 8 gallon drum of latte.
An hour and a half later, I’ll begin to feel guilty for not doing anything, get up and fold a load of laundry. I’ll take it upstairs, glance at the big bag of mail I’ve never opened, sigh and heave it up, onto the bed.
‘Well, I could watch t.v. while organizing,’ I think. And this is where it all goes to pot. I’ll find a Netflix 3-star series and watch the first episode. And the thing is, these shows aren’t even great. I almost think it’s a form of procrastination.
‘Well, I guess I need to see what happens to grandma,’ I say and hit “next episode”.
4 hours later, there is a clothes basket still containing the clothes I brought upstairs, lying on the floor. Old bills and paperwork form a snow angel around me. I’ve done nothing with them except divide them into 2 piles:
Easy To Open Mail– these items include Valupaks, credit card offers and coupons.
Avoid Like the Plague Mail– These include anything from the IRS, the bank that holds our mortgage, the electric, water, gas and trash companies. And lastly medical bills.
So yeah, I’m hesitant to declare all these wonderful things I’m going to do this weekend. I’ll tell you one thing we haven’t done while the boys are gone and that’s cook. I picked up Chipotle for Valentine’s Day yesterday. C picked up BW3’s for us tonight. We refuse to cook for the next 72 hours and I don’t feel guilty about that at all. I’ll probably blog Sunday on what I did or didn’t accomplish childless this weekend.
You partiers!!!
You know it! We watched TV till like 10:00! I’m sure you’re jealous!
Oh definitely!
Go wild, you animals!!!
Perhaps tonight we will book a suite at the finest hotel nearby and trash it like rockstars! Or we will just do a puzzle.
You could do a puzzle in the shape of a hotel and then tear that apart when you are done 🙂
OOOO watch that show I recommended while you sort your mail and laundry! “Cheapest Weddings” but make sure you are at least a glass and a half of wine in when you watch the last episode. There are only 6 haha. And just turn on the voice recorder on your phone and give commentary while you watch to make a blog post. It will be epic.
That’s an even better idea. Ok, I set my alarm for 6:30 tonight to remind myself to watch it. Yeah!!!
Haha!!! Awesome!
I started watching it and I’ve gotten to where she just found out her mom isn’t coming to her wedding. It’s pretty good!
Ooo yeah that wedding everything goes wrong!! I liked how most of the weddings turned out. But the couples are the ones that set it all off lol. Some of the couples are just so bananas haha
It took me years to recognize and correctly label my mail anxiety, and I’m still dealing with the fact that it makes me feel like less of a grown-up. But at least I have an explanation (flimsy as it sounds to my own ears) as to why I can’t—seriously can’t—face the mail that piles up.
Thank you for acknowledging that it’s not as simple as other people make it seem.
What is it called b/c I was thinking it might something I seriously suffer from. I have little pockets of unopened mail in various parts of the house. Give it a decade and I’ll be labeled a hoarder.
We’ve just been calling it mail anxiety, though so far you’re the third discovered case. I’ll let my therapist know the epidemic is spreading; maybe we can finally get some funding and a support group.
And some help. I used to love the mail though that is when I was a child and expected 0 bills.
And, oddly, I am jealous…
LOL!