I used to run, back in high school: three miles a day, every day. I got up before sunrise to go running. Then I thought better of it. The last time I got up at sunrise, it was because being stuck in traffic in New Jersey is even worse.
My dear sweet spouse wants to run a marathon. A marathon! Twenty-six miles! He must be insane! But I’ve always thought marathoners must be touched in the head. So he gets up three times a week, at 6 AM, to go run ten miles.
It’s a little hard to have Superman for a partner. I feel rather a bit inferior, frankly. He’s a very energetic person; he gets up earlier, works harder and longer, does more. After work, he makes dinner and washes the dishes and balances the checkbook and then he dissertates. Me? I collapse on the couch and watch bad television. It's a little like what Phantom has just so eloquently said about kid-related responsibilities. There are all these people who are, honestly and truly, better than me at all this stuff.
Sometimes I try to delude myself: If only I really cared, I could totally work twelve hours a day, volunteer at the high school, pack nutritious and aesthetic lunches every day, sew that skirt that’s sitting in pieces on the floor, and exercise too! Absolutely! It’s just because I don’t care enough! Sure.
Maybe I do have more energy than I think. Maybe I use it up. Maybe it's sucked into a huge vortex off the coast. But I don't think I will ever have it in me to be as super as my darling husband.
I have real limits, hard edges where I run out of myself. One day, maybe I’ll be grown up enough to accept them, and stop being guilty about having nothing left to give. But not today.
Yeah, I pretty much feel the same way. My husband has two jobs, cooks, helps clean the house and still seems to have energy to spare. We used to go out a lot on the weekends and now generally, I'd rather not stay out late. I want to do more, be more, but I can't find the energy or the enthusiasm. I want to take charge of my life, but I'm not really sure what that means.
ReplyDeleteMy husband has run into two half-marathons since Baby Blue was born. Me, I'm lucky if I go for leisurely walk twice a month. Also, he works like a fiend, teaches a huge lecture course, publishes like a maniac, and is the 24-hour Fun Daddy. While I sit around and wonder if I could qualify for disability payments based on my chronic laziness...
ReplyDeleteI honestly have no clue where they get the energy. Is it genetic? Goes with the Y chromosome? Whatever it is, it's weird.
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