Making Our Lists, Checking Them Twice

Friday Flashback: Originally posted in December of last year.

I love my conversations with Sarah. We have been friends for eight years now, ever since Little Red and her daughter J. shared a desk and every waking moment in second grade. Sarah and I have similar aged children, we are similar ages ourselves, our husband’s have similar personalities, and we are dealing with similar issues currently…including spousal deployments.
This year has been teaching both of us to take better care of ourselves. To be our own advocates, and to be more selfish… in the best possible sense of the word.

Today, we were discussing things that we would like to do, but have never allowed ourselves the liberty of doing, because it might interfere with what we have perceived to be far more important – the immediate and ever changing plans of other family members.

Our scheduling something for ourselves might inconvenience others, or require their flexibility, rather than our own, so we just haven’t. It is part of the debilitating martyr mother and wife syndrome. We have, to our own detriment, dedicated ourselves to being completely devoted to the schedules of everyone else for the past 19 years, with the flexibility of professional contortionists.

Recently, it has dawned on both of us that this is not only to our own personal detriment, but really to the ultimate detriment of our own families. If we are not role models of a balance between family and a strong sense of self, for own daughters, we are certain to perpetuate a generational cycle of the dreaded martyr syndrome. Passing it on to our daughters, just as our own mothers have passed it to us. We must be the change we want to see.

Sarah said something so brilliantly profound during the course of this conversation, that I was stunned into a momentary silence of awe.She said something that I believe could be liberating for all mmm mmm mmm mmmiddle kerchew aged woman.

“You know,” Sarah said, “we might be a little young for a Bucket List, but we are just about the perfect age for a F*ck It List.”

Silence.

“What????” I finally stammered out, feeling a little shiver of joyful naughtiness run up my spine.

Sarah doesn’t swear EVER and it made her statement all the more wild….I had visions of the YaYa Sisterhood riding down the road in a convertible in their bras and panties ….that lusciously illicit feeling of wild liberation .



“A F*ck It List. It would be a list of all the things we would like to do for ourselves, but haven’t because we were doing things for other people…..and now we are going to just F*ck It and DO THEM.”

Oh, Sarah! You are the most brilliant woman I know! So, dear readers, get out your journals, lick your pencils, get to writing, and report back. Sarah and I both want to know what is on your F. I. List?

(Note: This was originally posted last year, since that time I have added to and changed my FI list.....have you? And if you were not in on this list the first time around, here is your chance to play along.)