Everything Is Work
A Manifesto
Before you read this you should know I wrote it in 2022. It was written from a place of anger and loss, and while I don’t completely resonate with it today, (at least not all day)—I’m still proud of it. I always envisioned myself reading this in a quick cadence at some sort of female driven open mic night, but I don’t attend a lot of those, much less speak at them. So here I am sharing it with you, on a Tuesday afternoon following a three day weekend from my local Barnes + Noble, because it still feels important to me.
And when I go back to re-read it every once in a while, I can still feel the overwhelming sense of panic that everything moves so fast and I feared it would never slow down, but I know now that it does. It really does.
Everything is work. A manifesto.
But not that kind of manifesto.
You know the kind you find in a young man’s room describing his disdain for the world and irritation with the constant rejections from women who didn’t ask for his advances. The manifesto that explains why he shot up a Bed Bath & Beyond in Topeka and then they blame everyone else but him. Because he thought everyone else was wrong and to be blamed, and that he was right.
But this isn’t that kind of manifesto.
Because I think everyone else is right and I’m wrong.
Everything is work. For women that is, everything is absolute work. My mother tells me to take in all in stride. You have the best of the best, a good life she insists. But how do I tell her I’m drowning and all I can see looking back are the ways she could’ve inflated my life jacket, but she didn’t know how to blow up her own.
Everything is work. Staying young is work. Young at heart and young in appearance is almost impossible. Don’t forget to put Aquaphor on your elbows because as they say, forgotten skin is rotten skin. Don’t forget to get Botox, work out, do those kegels, laugh enough to enjoy yourself, but not too much where it crinkles your face.
Don’t forget to have sex with your husband.
Everything is work.
Work is work. Work to provide and retire your husband early! Take back your routine, boss babe because we will pity you if you work until 5 o’clock and have to answer to someone else, but you will also be judged if homeschooling and homesteading is your “work”. But because everything is work anyway, don’t choose wrong.
Everything is work.
Raising children is a job they lied about in the description. Gentle parent, authoritative parent, hands off cage-free parent. We hold the next generation in our hands, it’s not like that’s a lot of pressure or anything.
I’m consumed with work and failure and happiness and contentment and finding my center, why didn’t they tell us that being happy would be work too?
Everything is work.
I’m so sorry I missed your birthday dinner. We had a sitter and then she canceled and then the stomach flu, and then spring break… Let’s get together soon. I miss you. Are you drowning like me? Maybe if we hold each other up we won’t go down, but it feels like the waves are getting taller. Coffee soon?
Everything is work.
I know you want to play puzzles before breakfast, but mommy got up early to work out in the garage and if I don’t fill my cup soon I will spill my grief onto you and I don’t want you to question who I really am— so give 5 minutes to squat through my trauma. Be right there! Yes, you can turn on the TV.
Everything is work.
Did you hear what food coloring does to your kids? We saw that pediatrician but he doesn’t believe the hype so we will just see where it goes. I will send you the article.
Are you happy? Because my husband says I don’t smile anymore and I seem ungrateful, and at the end of the day I forget to practice gratitude because I’m so tired from everything else, but really I’m just afraid I’m making one wrong decision after the next and I am ruining everything. Because everything feels like work.
Everything is work.
I used to get my nails done every Friday and it made me feel confident and put together even if I wasn’t. I stopped after we had our son and apparently you can’t leave a nail salon now for less than $130 bucks so I guess I will just do my own at home. When I find the time.
Did I cover everything? My memory is so bad these days and I’m trying keep up and any free moment I have I blow it on my phone because it makes me feel like I’m in control of my time, but really I’m just wasting it watching everyone else work.
Everything is work.
Yes, we are gonna try again in January I think. The doctors say I should be ready again and my fertility specialist is really confident it should be a breeze. Who knew growing your family would be so much work.
Hey. I’m sorry about last night. It’s just a season and this too shall pass. We will catch our breath in a few weeks and finally go on that trip. Okay. Love you too, honey.
See you after work…