The dirty water bottle wasn't the priority.
Over-functioning has been my default setting. Here's how I'm overriding it.
Friday morning, 7:42 AM. I needed to get out the door in less than 20 minutes so my son would be to school on time. I’d meant to get out of bed earlier today but once again I found myself dragging out of bed late once again.
And here I was, under the pressure of time still needing to make breakfasts, finish packing lunches & gather some snacks to toss into backpacks. and hopefully fast enough, because I also wanted to make sure I had time for my breakfast, too.
But instead? I’m catching myself in the act of once again over-functioning, staring down at the dirty water bottle in my hand that I picked up & started washing, as if that were the priority.
“Stop,” I told myself.
I turned toward the toaster to get back on track and as I open the pantry to grab the peanut butter jar, I can’t help but notice the nearly empty bag of bread with only the heels remaining & the expired Hawaiian rolls I’d meant to throw out days ago.
Everywhere I turned, it was a nearly active choice to disrupt this invasive form of programming that I survived on for years.
Maybe it’s because I’m a first-born. Maybe it was me internalizing that a “good girl” is constantly vigilant in noticing what needs doing. Or maybe the type a in me.
However you slice it, the truth is the same: over-functioning has only gotten me one outcome…more over-functioning.
I remember a conversation I once had with a friend shortly after having my second baby. I just couldn’t understand how my husband wasn’t inclined to co-manage all of the responsibilities added to our household since becoming parents. Honestly, I was dumbfounded at how it didn’t even seem to be an issue of not caring, but the stark reality that he was blissfully unaware of it. And in truth, I was proportionately unaware of my own over-functioning & how was compounding the problem further.
But what did click was the realization that I’d been waiting (for years at this point) for him to finally catch on & spontaneously jump in with both hands. That help wasn’t coming. And I was wasting so much effort trying to manage all of it myself in the meantime.
I didn’t fully metabolize it in the moment, but I see now that this was when I accepted that no one was coming to save me.
I was at a fork in the road: choose to continue over-functioning or choose to recalibrate.
I chose the latter. But I chose it in ways I thought I could exact more control over the outcome.
Household a disorganized mess? Kon Mari. Kids are a disaster at bedtime? A better routine. Not eating as well as I’d like? Subscribe to meal delivery.
But what I failed to see during this period somewhere in the middle, was that all I’d done was created more rigidity in my life that required even more of my time, energy & consistency in order to have the desired outcomes. I had inadvertently given myself more to manage, because if I didn’t follow through the whole system fell apart.
Even a decade later, I’m still navigating what that looks like for me, but on the whole it’s been a near constant process of catching myself in micro moments, like I did on Friday morning, and choosing to reassure myself that just because something could be done doesn’t mean it should…at least, not right now.
It’s been a practice of unlearning. Of choosing differently for myself. It’s uncomfortable, inconvenient & effortful in some ironic way.
And it’s that way because my brain would much prefer the alternative. To do what’s familiar because that’s what’s safe.
But I choose instead to do the hard work of intentionality, overriding the default settings of over-functioning in favor of something greater. Because this isn’t about whether to “settle” for good enough, when it isn’t even settling at all. It’s a reclamation of self.
A choice of this is what’s good enough for me so that I can choose to use that capacity to pour my time, energy, creativity, talents & self into what I really would find more fulfilling & purposeful.
So I actively choose to put down the dirty water bottles, to walk away from the stale loaves of bread.
Not as an act of defiance or neglect. But as a choice to operate within my personal capacity & deciding what good enough looks like within those parameters. It is one of the most supportive choices I make for myself day after day.
Talk soon—
Erin
P.S. If you’re a paid subscriber, I dropped a voice note this week going deeper on what partnership actually looks like in our house…like why Fair Play wasn’t a fit for us, what I’ve learned about how Jason actually sees the household when I stop over-functioning. It’s a little longer than usual; I had a lot to say on this one. It’s at the bottom of the post, right below the essay voiceover — just scroll down & hit play. 👯♀️
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