Responsibility: Women’s ‘shoulds’ vs. ‘wants’

The other day, the beginning of a holiday weekend, I was totally bogged down with all the things I thought I should do.  I should sweep the floor; I should go to the food coop and buy food for the household; I should go to my Facebook business page and learn how to post on it, and send the posts on; I should ‘tweet’ which I truly don’t enjoy doing; I should exercise – the list goes on.  What struck me was that I didn’t really want to do any of what was on that list.  But nevertheless I felt responsible to do them.   I could still hear my father’s voice telling me that being an adult entailed doing lots of things I wouldn’t want to do, but I would learn to do them anyway.  Of course he also told me that work was something I wouldn’t enjoy, but would have to do as well.  Because I was in my twenties at the time and full of fervor about how my life was unfolding, his words made my skin crawl: I told him he was talking to the wrong daughter.  My sister lived in Australia already, so was far from his worrying influence.  He has been dead now for nearly twenty years.  Nothing he taught me had much use – which is another story for another blog – but his influence has been long-lasting. For a woman who grew up in the fifties, society supported what he was telling me, which certainly also had an impact.   As a ‘good’ woman I should put everyone first: husband, kids, friends, business associates.  I did this faithfully for years, and obviously sometimes still do.  I believe I behaved this way because I worried that I wasn’t such a woman, bearing little resemblance to Jane Wyatt standing by the picket fence waiting for Robert Young to come home from work with a smile on her face.  Many years ago when someone  at an Alanon meeting asked me what I enjoyed, I had no idea what to say.  I literally had no idea.  Neither the world at large, nor either of my parents, had ever suggested that I think about what I wanted or enjoyed, let alone that I pursue those things.  I was so horrified by that realization that I spent minutes, hours, then months, figuring out what was fun for me, and once I did, committing to actually doing one of those things every single day.  I slip sometimes, but I still honor that commitment.  The problem is that I also still put my ‘responsibilities’ first, although by now they are self-created.  I have no boss, a partner who is happy to make dinner or go to the market, no kids living at home – in short, I have lots of leeway in planing how I spend my time.  Every morning, after I look outside to see what the weather’s doing, which matters in the state of Washington where sun can be infrequent, I begin to compose the list of things I need to do for the day in my head, even if I don’t actually ‘need’ to do them.  Many of my friends work at something every day for hours also – in the yard, at the computer, for the community, the country –   so I know this behavior is not peculiar to me.  Though I do think it is peculiar.  When do I let go of the ‘should do’s’ and put ‘what I feel like doing today’ at the top of my list?  Today was a success.  Because I knew I was going to blog about this later, and have been thinking about it all weekend, I stayed in bed until 11:30 reading a mystery.  It was gloomy outside, though now the sun is shining, and it was what I felt like doing.  Perhaps if I make a similar choice more often, it won’t feel as if I’m in indulging in a guilty pleasure when I do! I’d love to hear from women who think of themselves as an aside, and why you think you do.  And if you don’t, I’d like to know how you stopped being a caretaker, or how you came to believe that your wants should come first.  That’s one I’m obviously still working on.