The Undiscussed

So yeah, there’s this thing which I spent most of my spring dealing with extensively. I brought it upon myself, but only because I saw no other course of action, if I was to continue thinking of myself as a good person. Which I do. A self-centered person with poor impulse control, yes, but fundamentally a person who would pick up the hungry kitten instead of kicking it.

The hungry kitten responsibility that I took on is a lot like parenting a second child, one whose needs and behaviors are nowhere near as clear cut and easy to meet as the actual parenting that I do every day. Even when the actual parenting I did yesterday involved cleaning up after a two year old who was throwing up. A lot. What else do you do besides keep them cleaned up, act like it’s no reason to panic, monitor liquid outgo, and break out the carpet cleaner? Easy to figure out.

The hungry kitten responsibility, though, involves multiple people’s needs, desires, and personal drama, as well as weeks and weeks where my working days are interrupted, cut short, turned upside down, and intermingled with demands upon my skills from a previous profession – one which I got out of for a reason. I have far less control over the actors and the likely outcomes include some that are fairly serious.

If I had it to do over, I would still make the decision to take it on. I wish it hadn’t happened, but if it did, taking it on was the right thing to do, and I have to see it through.

However.

This week, I had finally started to make progress in the battle of “stop waiting to improve your life and actually do it,” which means creating a routine, eating fruits and vegetables, and pulling some semblance of a to-do list system back together. I was caught up on work for the first time since BlogHer and obviously blogging a lot more as well.

So this week, the hungry kitten situation decides to go from bad but holding to worse and not holding, in a way that requires my immediate attention and most of the limited emotional resources I have left over after parenting.

And I am cranky about it.

The end.