Being Paleo Made Me Shit My Pants

A hardworking friend of mine made the perennial comment to me that is part of being any LeaveMeAloneI'veGotThis woman and every fantastically excellent mom.  She said, "I don't know how you do it."  She was speaking to myself and another friend with a hectic life.  Without hesitation I gave her my most truthful answer.  I do it by letting something or a lot of somethings go.  Right now it's my house that is the dropped ball.  It's filthy and cheaply decorated sans any particular style and sometimes (a lot of the time) it looks like we've been robbed by a band of pirates.  (Just today, I almost wiped some salad dressing off my chin with a dirty sock because it was there on the table and I couldn't find any paper towels.  We don't even bother with napkins).  If we had more time, which we didn't because we were all busy w.o.r.k.i.n.g,  I would have gone on some excellent laughter infused riff swearing that I mostly speak to my kids in a way that causes self-esteem issues and everybody thinks our new puppy is so cute but so far her only big trick is dropping turds while walking up the stairs.  When the time comes, I expect no less of a truthful and non-hesitant answer from my friend when it's my turn to gauge my life choices against her or someone else.  This will probably happen tomorrow as she makes her own super cute clothes and they all look like something out of Boden catalog.  Girl power.

It did get me thinking though.  How DO I do it?  And let's get something out of the way - I am in no way coming from the perspective that I think I am really great at this thing called life.  I've made lots of bad choices, wasted tons of time and spent many night screaming at people who loved me.  And those were just the college years.  I also think I'm only possibly, possibly doing a passable job at this thing called "life with kids".  For example, in real time, I just interrupted typing to run downstairs to tell my oldest son he was a bully and to go to his room until morning for telling his sister her piano playing sucked as a way to get her to stop playing so he could continue watching some really inappropriate show that is masquerading as a kids cartoon.   The secondary effect was he needed to go up anyway to get his homework done.  Actually, that example makes me look pretty good except that in my head I was thinking "Douche Bag.  Asshole.  I was just on a roll, dammit!".  I don't know.  Maybe that makes me look pretty good too.

So how do I do it?  How do I keep piling it on year after year?  One more kid.  One more dog.  One more job.  One more dream.  Sometimes I temper it all with some nice OCD distraction like eating Paleo for three months.  Something to make me feel in control because I can't seem to keep the laundry load under twelve baskets or the grocery bill under $300....ok, $400.  Sometimes I think I keep piling it on because there was a time where I did not have the energy or drive to really do anything but cry about how hard and yet, super boring my life was.  Those were baby-toddler-husband-travels-a-LOT years.  My life WAS, in fact,  super boring.  Maybe I'm making up for lost time.   Maybe if I give anything up I'm afraid I'll go back spending hours not knowing what to do with myself, because having a perfectly trained puppy is just not going to do it for me anymore.  In fact, it never really did it for me in the first place.  And maybe I didn't really let the house go in order to make room for the husband, the kids, the dog, the puppy, the certifiable cat, the job, the coaching, and the yoga.  Back when I had nothing to do the house pretty much looked like crap then too.

Paleo, by the way, was wonderful.  I felt raw and buzzy and powerful and my taste buds were so awakened I could taste the sugar off tree bark.   But it had to stop because Paleo made me shit my pants.  A lot.  And here I am...picking on the puppy.