It’s Just a Stupid Pot of Coffee. Or is it?

I was a card carrying “Hearth & Home Maniac-tress”.  A made up title, but a perfect description of my blind over-devotion to husband, sons, and home.  The level of perfection I demanded from myself is staggering.  My identity and self worth was defined by a made up list of qualifications as to what a good wife and mother did and how well I could fulfill each and every item on it.  There was never an either-or.  It was all or nothing.  If it wasn’t perfect I was a failure, and probably unloveable.

In my skewed world, of my own making,  if I didn’t do everything for my husband and boys to make their lives the most shazaam as possible I was either being selfish, petty, unkind, or any number of other epithets.  

Then, one monumental Saturday morning I woke up and thought ‘I’m fried!  I can’t do this anymore.  I can’t make spectacularly healthful meals all the time.  I can’t be responsible for making everyone's holidays, birthdays, and even made up days of celebration the be all and end all of experiences.  I can’t homeschool all day,  work part time, and be wife extraordinaire everyday, 365 days of the year for the rest of my life.  I am tired.’  I need to make a change and it needs to start now.  RIght this moment. In that exact moment I decided to make a change. 

           'I am not make coffee for my husband this morning.'  

           I thought.  There, done!!!  

Here’s the thing. I always made coffee for my husband on the weekends.  I got up earlier, rarely getting more than 5 hours sleep (due to the craziness in my head, caused by the craziness in my life)  However, I don’t drink coffee.  It was one of those acts of kindness I did because it was the ‘right thing to do’.  It was Considerate...Caring...a small thing really, in the grand scheme of life and the universe...Until that morning.

Undoubtedly, it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve every made, and yet one of the most profound.  I sat for 1 hour, one solid hour in absolute agony, waiting for my husband to get up and see that I hadn’t made coffee.  I did NOT live in fear of him seeing and exploding in wrath, because he’s never done that.  I was truly afraid that this would be a symbol that I wasn’t kind, that I was selfish, petty, not doing enough to prove that I loved him.

I sat on the couch, hands clenched, body stiff, the ugly voice in my head slinging an unending slew of hurtful phrases at me ‘You are so dumb, and petty.  Really petty.  And selfish.  Did I mention Selfish?  It’s a Stupid Pot of Coffee.  You can’t make a stupid pot of coffee for your own husband?  What else are you doing?  You are so childish’. 

But for some reason, that morning my resolve was set.  I was recapturing my life.  I was going to start putting myself first.  If that process had to start over a Stupid Pot of Coffee, so be it.  

Every negative phrase my evil brain conjured up I combatted with a positive affirmation of my own.  ‘I am a kind, caring person.  I love my husband and my sons.  Taking care of me is important.  No one will be injured or think ill of me if I don’t make this pot of coffee.”

We wrestled, my brain and I, for an entire hour, afraid to relax my vigil for fear I would cave in and feed the demon in my head, the voice that for far too long had been allowed to control my self worth.  We sat, and we waited for my husband to come down and see me for the selfish, petty person that I was.

When he finally came downstairs my dear, sweet, loving husband didn’t even notice.  He made his own coffee.  He didn’t hate me because I hadn’t waited on him.  And I felt...bigger, some how.  I shared with him what the last hour for me had looked like.  He hugged me and said ‘you don’t need to do all these things for me.  You are so wonderful.  You could never be petty, or selfish.  You do so much for us.‘  I knew then that I was free, released from the prison of my own thoughts.  

Being a kind, caring person does not mean you attend to everyone’s needs to the detriment of your own well being.  You can still be nice and take care of yourself.  You are the nicest, kindest, and most caring person when the gift of love you give so freely to other starts with you, in your own heart, your own mind.  When you cherish yourself like you do others it makes your heart bigger.  It makes your capacity to share your kindness deeper, because it comes from a different place, somehow.  It comes from a place that is already full of love, self-love and that makes it even more precious.