SISTER WISDOM

Well, I can’t say that this little experiment is going the way I want it to. I haven’t gotten a nice long solitude-soaked walk every night this week, as I’ve quit trying to demand (me! self-care! me!) and started trying to let myself be taken care of. Some things, just circumstances and busyness, got in the way, some evenings when we were simply too busy with friends or obligations.

Ignoring Self-Preservation Instincts

My instinct (the self-preservation one, I guess) is to find a new plan, one that doesn’t involve me depending on Joe to make it happen the way I want it to. He doesn’t need any more pressure, I tell myself. He’s got enough going on.

And he does. He’s doing care-taking work for the church, taking care of this house we live in, fixing our car, dealing with our finances, taking care of our rental home, plus meeting my insatiable need for quality time, working a physically demanding job, and getting up at 4:30 in the morning to go on a bike ride.

Wow. This started as a musing upon my needs and how I want them to be met but I’m going to hold on that. Because – wow – did anyone else read that list? I’ve suspected it for a long time but now it’s confirmed.
I really am married to SuperMan.

Try Not To Be Jealous

I guess, shame on me, I’ve never really thought about all the things my husband does, all the big areas he is responsible for. Probably because he does such a good job at them that there’s no need for me to notice.

Just in the short time of last weekend, for example, he met with our Pastor, bought, unloaded, and moved fence materials, worked in the garden, located, purchased, and installed a replacement rear window in our Suburban (saving us boatloads of money by getting it from a scrapyard and putting it in himself), cleaned out trash at our rental house, played with the kids, took me shopping, ran errands, played drums and set up sound for the youth both Saturday night and Sunday morning, took me shopping again (hee hee), hung out at a big family lunch, helped his Dad put in a new hitching post, took care of the kids while I went out to get a good wi-fi signal and work, cleared out a big area in the walking trail in the woods, made dinner, bathed the kids, and spent time with me. Oh, and sold his air compressor…

No Wonder I Married This Guy

I’m really impressed with my husband. I’ve mentioned before how I’m a little obsessive about efficiency… Well, I married the right guy for that. He gets more done in a day than most people do in six months. And the best part? He still makes time for me.
I get hugs and kisses and conversation. I get included in whatever he is doing. I get a positive response when I say I need to run to the store, want to come? or I need some time to work, will you watch the kids?
This is his normal way of life.

Guess what I don’t see?
Any time, thought, or effort given to “self-care.”

Feminist Blah Blah Blah

Oh ho, you personal-growth guru women say: He’s a man. It’s different. He isn’t under the same pressure, he doesn’t have the tension, the demands that we women face. He isn’t juggling a career and a home…

Heck yes he is!

That list was his weekend at home. Guess what he does during the week? Works. (Duh.) If that’s not juggling (gracefully and capably, I might add) the demands of home, family, and work (not to mention church), I don’t know what is.

And as far as pressure, tension, demands… well, I can tell you all about that. Truth be told, I’m the one who puts on the pressure, creates the tension, issues the demands. If he’s my SuperMan, I’m his Lois Lane… but sometimes I’m also his kryptonite.

Exclusivism?

When did we women start thinking we had exclusive experience with time crunches, obligations, endless to-be-done lists, conflicting needs? (Oh wait…yes… let’s see… I think it was way back in the ’60′s, right around the time we started trying to be men. Yes, that was it… Coincidence? Correlation?)

Self-care is not part of SuperMan’s vocabulary.
Know what is?
Selflessness. Self-sacrifice. Self-denial. Self-discipline.
You can’t be a superhero if the only person you’re interested in saving is yourself.

I’m really grateful to be married to a guy who’s not into practicing “extreme self-care.” He’s more interested in taking care of me than he is of himself. He even makes it through the kryptonite days, when all I do is send out debilitating waves of negative energy. He takes care of me even then.

And you know what?
All that giving, that selflessness, that caring for me just makes me want to take care of him.

I love you, SuperMan.

–

Image courtesy of James Jordan on Flickr.