Dolly Do- All

I have a thing with bath tubs. This is my second blog centered on a bath tub revelation. I love taking a bath; I get that from my mom. I grew up knowing ‘mom bath tub time” was “mom get away from the kids and relax time”.  I don’t really understand what I find so relaxing about them. I am too tall to sit comfortably in them, I am hot and sweaty in like, three minutes, and I usually don’t make it one chapter in my book before I’m like, okay, this was cool, I’m over it”. But I relate relaxation to them anyways; probably because it is the only time I slow down for five seconds.

I was in the bath today, after a long, sweaty run, (not sure why I thought the two would go well together), and I attempted to begin relaxing. I cannot relax. I cannot take naps. I am hardly able to sleep past eight o’ clock. I have always been this way. I feel like I am wasting time I could be using to do something, and yet while I am doing those things that are so important I can’t take a nap because I need to get them done, I am thinking about how nice it would be to take a nap. I am pretty sure I am the only kid who woke up feeling guilty for falling asleep in class. But, I digress, (or random-ess, which is a MUCH more applicable term. I don’t digress, I jump, hop, skip, and slide around a conversation so much I forget what I was originally talking about) so, I am in the bathtub and I am trying to relax, and trying to calm myself down. I am stressed, I am overwhelmed, I am disappointed in someone I needed to pull through for me, and I am angry at some changes I don’t want made, that affect some changes I did want made, and a settlement in something that I was relying on to bring some balance to my life.

            I am not complaining. I am a graduate student, I have a job that allows me to pursue my dreams and still provide for myself, I have a loving and supportive family, I have a handful of the greatest friends anyone could ask for, I have a God that meets me where I’m at and wants a relationship with me, I am healthy, and I know this. But, I am overwhelmed, and Dolly Do-All over here is learning she can’t do, well, it all. It is hard for a superhero to acknowledge their kryptonite. I want to be wonder woman, but I am tired. And those shorts would give me an eternal wedgie.

I am also famously cliché. I would love to tell you I am positive during the hard times, but I’d also love to tell you I look as good at five in the morning as I do at five in the evening. Both would be lies. I stay faithful during the difficult times. I pray and remain engaged in my relationship with Christ. I don’t immediately go into the “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!??!” ugly cry out to God, but I don’t remember the things I usually thank God for everyday in prayer.

I am sitting in this bath tub and my brain is still going the way it was on my run. Thought afterthoughtafterthoughtafterthought and it just.wont.stop. I start ticking off the things I have to do tomorrow, the next day, a week from now, a year from now; with each item on my list I get angrier and angrier about the schedule I was depending on that is changing, then I beat myself up because I am lucky to have a schedule in the first place. I start hearing everyone’s helpful sentiments, “it’s all worth it, just hang in there,” “we’ll work it out” blah blah blah. I just want to scream at the top of my lungs, “SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I am stuck in between not being at the finish line yet, but being so close I can’t turn around and run the other way, I am too old to move back into my parent’s house and let them buy my shampoo for me and remind me to take the trash cans out. My grandpa is gone now and he isn’t coming back to pay for my school, or speak in his accent about how wonderful the opportunity to educate myself is and how I must push forward. I am a grown up. I am a single grown up. I am grown.

                        I am grown.

I get overwhelmed all over again. I don’t want to be grown, I don’t want to have a business card, I don’t want to be a grad student, I don’t want to pay taxes. I don’t want to be old enough to lose people, I don’t want to have a day planner, I don’t want to pay the electric bill and have conversations about retirement plans, I DON’T EVEN WANT TO VOTE!

But then I calm down. Dolly Do-All remembers why she wants to do it all in the first place. I take a deep breath and laugh. I am sitting in my parents bath tub visiting them, and I am having my MILLIONTH melt down in this same bathroom…. the same tub I cried in when I was nervous on my first day of work for my first job ever. The same tub I cried in on my high school graduation day, my first day of college, the day I moved out, the day I got fired for the first time ever. And whether my melt down was me freaking out because I needed to ask my parents if I could borrow some money to pay off my Victoria Secret credit card (I had at 18!!!!!!!!!!!!), or how I am going to explain to my parents that I am moving back in because I am getting a divorce…everything always works out okay.

I am okay.

Dolly- do all is okay. I may not be able to do it all. I might not be the next Wonder Woman with cuter hair and tattoos, but I am at least rejuvenated enough to try. I will have other melt downs, but in the meantime I am going to enjoy how fluffy the bath mat between my toes feels, I will praise a God that never lets me down, although people will. I will smell my mom’s candles and coffee that fill this house, and listen to the sounds of all these crazy dogs barking, and smile because I know I always have a home to come home to. I will have a million more melt downs, but as long as there is a bath tub for me to sweat in, I will be all right.