Enough is Enough

Lately I have not had a lot of time for the people who are important to me.  I have been so very busy with work, with being social, with the gym, with, well everything.  I have referred to as Miss Busy, Busy Bee and Miss Crazy Busy.  And it has been stressing me out, I have been trying to fit way to much into my life.  I have been stressing about how I am going to afford my visa, how much I work, do I need a new job, when will I grow up, when will I move home, and a whole host of other things that I have no real consequence but added to all of this other stuff, are leading me down the path to a total meltdown.

Then this came up on my news feed.

And it stopped me dead in my tracks (ok only for about two secs, but it did stop me).  It’s easy to think that you are the only person who feels like they want the world to stop or fuck off for a while.  I have come to regard my room as my sanctuary.  I like to hibernate in there for long periods of time on the weekend and get very annoyed when my Saturday morning sleep in is disrupted.

But it did get me thinking, what has caused this post it note to be something that most of my friends ‘liked’ and reposted?

Are we a generation that is trying to fit everything in and are forgetting to stop and appreciate ourselves and what we have.  Is this something that only woman feel?  I looked back at my week.  Friday night I had a friend’s birthday at my fav pub, oh, that’s right, only after a few work drinks to celebrate a major contract we had won.  Saturday it was running and gyming, followed by dinner with a really fun new friend and one of my fav people at my fav pub, Sunday was movies and an unexpectedly fun dinner (when I should have been at the gym), Monday was a work function till 8pm, then heading to the other side of the city for a friends gig, Tuesday was my night off when I should have been in the gym, but ended up having wine with friends and then vegeing on the couch, oh the guilt.  Wednesday was work pub quiz, Thursday is work event in Euston and tomorrow will be a concert in Hyde park in the pissing rain.  Phew, I feel exhausted just writing and reading that back.  No wonder I am feeling like hiding underneath the covers. 

So why have I subjected myself to two garden parties in the torrential rain this week?  Why have I suited up for beekeeping, when I could have really used the time to be organising the massive European conference that I am neck deep in?  Why have I avoided the gym and felt so awful about it?  Why will I be attending my second working breakfast of the week tomorrow?

Because I feel that someone will think less of me if I don’t.  At work I might be branded lazy if I don’t keep up the gruelling pace set by everyone trying to outdo each other.  My friends might be hurt if I don’t keep up with them, and god knows that I need them to stay sane.  I go a bit nuts if I don’t see my bestie for more than a few days.  It’s amazing how some people keep you so grounded and are able to balance out your nuttiness.  Over the last month it’s been really hard, there was a period of about two weeks when we didn’t see each other, and I felt like I had lost a limb.  I was so happy to see them again and catch up, we text most days, but it’s not the same as a hug and a good chat over a drink or two. 

And there is also the severe FOMO that I suffer from.  Fear of Missing Out is a great motivator.  What if I don’t go to the work event and then miss out on making a great contact that could see my life better in the future?  What if I don’t have drinks with friends and miss out on meeting someone really fun?  Or having the best night of my life?  What if I don’t attend the class and miss out seeing something really cool happen to the bees?

This phenomenon seems to be a recent event and unique to our generation.  We are constantly being encouraged to love every minute of our lives, YOLO – which I hate by the way, who thought that shit up, is bandied about far too often.  You can sleep when you are dead, you should go mental when you are young and experience everything that is open to you.  The thing is, I have experienced a lot more than many people that I know.  At 25 I owned a home and was in a long term serious relationship.  Tick.  That didn’t work out so I decided to travel the world, but the bugger about that is, the more you see the more you want. So half tick.  I was once the youngest female supervisor of a claims department, so my career was pretty cool.  Tick.  I have seen more concerts than most people I know, I was horrified when a nice man I met the other day told me he had only ever been to one concert. So Tick.  I have bungee jumped.  Tick.  So surely I and the world should now give me a break and let me be? 

The thing is these days woman are expected to do more than the generation before them.  We are expected to be working mothers.  I can’t wait to be a mum, but at the same time I know it’s going to be bloody hard work.  Working, caring for children, cooking dinner, keeping house, paying bills, all the kids activities, ensuring something is left over for me, and most likely holding down some kind of relationship with whoever fathers these kids!  And finding time for my friends who as noted above keep me sane.  Looking back at previous generations, they seem like simpler times.  Don’t get me wrong they had their own set of issues to deal with, desperate housewives and all.  But I can’t help but feel we have gone too far in the other direction.  Is there not a happy medium where a woman can feel that she has done enough and that she is enough?

But I guess that is the point of the post it.  Right now it’s very likely that I am enough, I have enough and that I have done enough.  If only I had two seconds to recognise it.