Stretch Armstrong
A story about being pulled in all the directions.
I’m sitting at 8 pm to write this. I’m exhausted. I spent the day being reminded of the ways I have been failing lately, the people I am letting down, and the broken things I can’t fix. I am feeling all the feelings.
I also got about 18 trigger point shots in my head and went bra shopping, and honestly, I can’t tell you which one of those things was more painful. But I digress.
As I sat here, staring at the blank page in front of me, an ancient memory popped up with a visual representation of how I feel right now.
Stretch Armstrong.
If you are a Gen Xer, you might have had a Stretch Armstrong doll when you were a kid. I feel like he must have belonged to my brother, but for some reason, I have a strong association between Stretch and my mom. Maybe he made her laugh.
The trick about Mr. Armstrong, for those of you who haven’t met him before, is that, in his normal state, he looks like a tough, muscular dude. So serious. So ready for anything.
But then, you realize that this is why Stretch Armstrong is so named:
Wikipedia says that Stretch “can be stretched from its normal size of about 15 inches (38 cm) to four to five feet (120 to 150 cm).” That’s a lot of stretching.
I am in my Stretch Armstrong era.
Stretch was a tough dude. He got stretched this way and that and snapped back into shape every time. He seemed invincible, and he always kept that unbothered look on his face.
But eventually he wore out. Got some little tears. Oozed a little goo.
I feel you, Stretch.
I know that you’re supposed to take time to care for yourself, blah, blah, but I have given myself some time to rest as I have been overly fatigued and sick over the last 6 months, and you know where it’s gotten me? To a messy house with mounting bills and a pile of unfinished work. The stuff didn’t get done when I was resting. And while I’m feeling a little bit better now, it’s nearly just as overwhelming to try to figure out how I’m going to dig out of this proverbial mess (at least I don’t literally need a shovel, the house isn’t THAT dirty). I’m still really tired, and I still have my weeks packed with doctor appointments, but I hate to get even further behind.
I’m not alone in this. Not by a long shot. I guess there are some situations where people step in and do your stuff while you’re struggling, but for most of us, that doesn’t happen, and we just try to keep stretching to reach all the pieces and hold them together.
Maybe the trick to keeping those stretchy limbs intact is to pare down your house and your life to the degree that ignoring all but the barest of duties for a solid stretch of time doesn’t leave you with utter disaster. I’m not sure that works completely - there’s nothing that can stop the endless creation of trash, for one - but it might help.
I’m a big fan of decluttering, and having a minimalist kitchen is the reason why that’s the only room in my house that doesn’t need some serious help right now. But I have a lot more decluttering to do, because while I was stretching in all the directions, extra stuff was creeping in, and the last round of decluttering I was doing before I really lost control of all the things is in boxes by the front door. Open. With stuff falling out of them.
I think maybe to get back on some kind of reasonable track, I need to take some shortcuts. Throw the boxes of stuff away instead of trying to get them to the thrift store. It’s mostly junk anyway. (I know, adding to the landfills is bad, but wallowing in depression and not being able to get in reasonable control is worse. That’s a hill I’ll die on.) For now, I need to stop trying to do all the things the right way and just try to make progress where I can.
The other thing I need to let go of is feeling so bad about disappointing other people. This person is mad because they had to do something extra because I messed up. (I apologized.) This person is asking me to go here with them because they like my company (which is nice) or to help them do this or that because I’m good at those things, or because they, too, could use some help. And then there are all the people that I feel like I should be spending time with, even though they haven’t asked me to do something with or for them, because they are special people in my life, and no one lives forever.
I think I need to just accept that people are going to be disappointed or angry and feel some kind of way, and that just has to be okay. I can’t control all the feelings.
It’s not my job to make everyone happy. Why do I think that’s my job?
Do you think it’s your job too? Why does this job not pay enough that I don’t have the ever-growing pile of bills? Does it have benefits? What about vacation time???
The moral of this story, I think, is that we probably all feel like Mr. Armstrong sometimes. If you’re in your Stretch Armstrong era, please know that I’m here with you. I think maybe it helps to know that you aren’t alone.
Let’s take care not to break, okay?
This week in my CRAP I BOUGHT section (ironic considering the previous text, right?):
This cheap megaphone, which I’m using to help hopefully save me from vocal cord surgery (but I’m probably just going to have to have it anyway). But the megaphone is great for the basic room-to-room shouting I seem to do a lot. It also annoys one of my kids, and that’s pretty funny. BONUS.
Batteries for the megaphone because who has C batteries?
These giant, American-made, probably-about-as-good-for-your-dog-as-a-candy-bar-is-for-us biscuits. Most of my dogs love them. My Whippet, Parker, feels like he is burdened with the biscuit and must carry it around all day, even though I give him the option of just not taking it every time. This is how he rolls, I guess.
I bought these acrylic markers last week, but I’ve now used them and I can report that they are so cool and fun.
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See you next week!
I think you just gave yourself (and me) a good lesson in dealing with all life has to... offer.
I've been feeling like I've let you down by not reading and commenting on your last several Phone Booths... it's not like I'm under any obligation, or that I'm your only reader and if I don't read, you'll stop writing... it's that useless gift of guilt working on me again.
I love reading your heart, as it comes out in your Phone Booths, and I will read and comment when i...well, when I read and comment.
thank you for this one! it's quite timely for me, and, I suspect, for you! imagine hearts here... imagine because I am on my heart-less emoji keyboard.
I feel you, I really do. My worst moments in the last decade were confronting not MY OWN considerable mess, but my just deceased parents' . We did our best to recycle , donate and at least get rid of any hazardous stuff but after our 10th pickup truck load, we gave up. We went through everything to make sure we weren't throwing anything valuable away, and we rented the biggest dumpster we could find, and everything went in it. Sometimes its the only way. Don't beat yourself up about throwing stuff away. Your time is valuable too! I swore I'd never let us get that bad, but we are still a work in progress.