Adulting is hard! Allow me to repeat that: ADULTING IS HARD! And, yes, like so many other words in the 21st century we have verbed the noun. Our predecessors would most likely remark that there is no such thing as “adulting” when you are one; it’s just living life and doing what’s necessary. Perhaps so but, sometimes, it can feel downright oppressive.

Here was my adulting today:

1. I got this week’s bills written up and ready to mail.
2. I wrote letters to friends and loved ones.
3. I sussed out our budget for the next week and a half.
4. I went to the post office.
5. I went to the bank.
6. I helped my in-laws get their tax forms printed off since their printer is being a jerk.
7. I went to the credit union to make sure all was in order for some important payments.
8. I dropped four bags of stuff off at Goodwill.
9. I found a prop my husband needed for a project in under three minutes of entering the store.
10. I ordered and picked up dinner for my family and my in-laws.
11. I chatted with my husband about something I felt God had led me to do today that he needed to know about.
12. I washed and dried a load of laundry.
13. I fed my daughter.
14. I baked cookies at her request.
15. I made the beds, tidied the bedrooms, and aired the house.

In my opinion, that’s some respectable adulting for one day. As I speak, however, there are some things I am leaving undone. The dishes in the sink have not been washed, the laundry in the basket is still waiting to be folded, and the living room is a mess from my girl’s afternoon play. And you know what? With the exception of the living room, which needs to be tidied up a bit so I can do my barre workout, I am just fine with it staying that way for the rest of the night. There’s reading and working out and relaxing to be done!

Self-care is still a learning process for me. I was excellent at it for about a week while visiting my parents; I read more that week than I have in any space of time in recent memory. I went for walks, I got myself ice cream, it was a good time. But now that I am home in the same old same old, I am having to relearn how to do self-care every day. And this is part of it.

The dishes and laundry can wait. It’s Tuesday. Things that I enjoy are waiting for me.