The other day at work, I accidentally overheard a phone conversation in which one of my co-workers was trying to coordinate an intricate dance of chauffering jobs. After she got off the phone, I asked her who was taking care of her. She spent the next half hour telling me in intricate detail about her life, dealing with ex's, children, step-children, parents.....etc. I gladly listened, because I could hear, behind her rather frenzied narrative, her desperation at having to do it all.
Where does she possibly find a way to carve out time from her overly busy day for herself? Where can she go to find peace? Who can she turn to when she needs caring for......if she ever admits she needs it and tries to ask for it?
There are women all around you who are frantically multi-tasking, juggling home, work, marriage - or divorce - children, elderly parents, and heaven only knows what else. They have either not learned to delegate, or there is no one responsible enough in their life to delegate to. Day after day, week after week, year after year these women struggle on, with far more plates spinning than the performers we used to watch in awe on old TV variety shows.
Is it any wonder that their plates begin to wobble? Is it any wonder that doctors' offices are full of women seeking chemical help to enable them to have the focus and calm to keep carrying their loads?
It's easy for an outsider- particularly a man - to say, well, make them do things themselves. Don't enable your children's neglect of taking care of their own stuff. Don't enable your deadbeat husband by throwing up your hands and deciding it's easier to do it yourself than leave things to him, knowing they won't get done.
But women aren't wired like that. They're wired to be the caretakers, the caregivers.
God blessed me with a man who tries his best to equalize the load. Yet even I carry around everybody's "stuff," worrying over this and that detail. And my children are all grown! Thank goodness they are, slowly but surely, insisting on assuming their own responsibilities, realizing they need to liberate me and get on with their lives. Yet, still I worry.
I wish I had the money to buy this co-worker a mini-vacation at a spa. I would like to see her feel pampered and utterly taken care of, her every need met. But even after a couple of days of quiet, Swedish massages, great restaurant eating, and sinking off to blessed deep sleep on a deep, plush matress, she'd have to return to the treadmill of tension and time-juggling that is her life. And she has so many sisters.
I know men have a hard load to carry, too. So many men feel they have to always be the strong one, but they are full of tension and pain and need caring for as well. Most of them would die rather than admit need.
How sad we all are. We medicate ourselves so we can keep going, doing too much, far more than we were built to handle at one time. We try to appear invincible, capable. It's in control. No worries, it'll all get taken care of. Somehow. I think God watches us and sadly shakes His head. He has a lot to teach us about living differently, if only we would stop a while and make a place in our day to be quiet and listen.
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