Caught Up

Well, I’ve gone and done it. When I got to Germany almost a year ago to the day, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. For the first time in my life I had nothing to do! And although, I wanted to work really, really bad, I kind of enjoyed that feeling for a while. And now, I’m right back where I started and I don’t even know how it got like this.

My situation is like that of an overachieving high school student. You know the ones – play varsity sports, in the band, holds an office in student government, all while holding a part-time job. Except I’m not an overachiever. In fact, I’d almost call myself an underachiever. So how did I end up so involved?

Right before I left Tallahassee, I had almost reached the breaking point. My insides were what it must feel like for a skimpy triangle top struggling to cover some DDs – as in stretched to the limit. Knowing that it could snap at any moment. I was teaching a 7 a.m. class twice a week, after which I went to work full-time as associate editor of a weekly paper. Full-time meaning that I often worked at home after close of business and on weekends. I was also active with my sorority and OES chapter, including meetings, fundraisers and the like. So when I got here, doing nothing was like a breath of fresh air.

But slowly, that nothing became a whole lot. And a whole lot is now more than I think I’ve ever done in my life. At my first “Army spouse” get together, otherwise known as FRG stuff (Family Readiness Group), I was asked to be FRG leader. Not knowing enough about it, I agreed. That’s how they trap you I guess. As an officer’s wife, I’m “automatically” a part of the coffee group. In a moment of tedium-induced panic, I volunteered to be coffee group treasurer. “Anybody want to be treasurer? Who wants to be treasurer? Anybody? Anybody?” And so on and so forth for 10 minutes.

And of course, my first mission was to join the AKA graduate chapter here, where we meet monthly in a city 2 hours away. Now that we’re stepping, it looks like every Saturday is going to be filled.

I’ve also become the church secretary/PR person. So I’m pretty much in charge of anything administrative that comes out of the church, like church bulletins and stuff.

So my schedule is pretty much: Monday – nothing – except for steering committee once a month
Tuesday – German class; Wednesday – 2 days gone with FRG and Steering committee; Thursday – Church ; Friday – church twice a month; Saturday – prayer (although I rarely go); once a month sorority meetings; step practice; Sunday – church; grocery shopping; rest.

Not to mention that I work full-time, full-time wife, chef, etc. etc. and need to show both Woodstock and Taz some TLC on the regular. I’m getting tired just thinking about it. Of course all this leaves me with little “me” time and the me time I do have needs to be spent in the gym, which of course, it’s not, so I am getting fatter and fatter each week, and really, I’m not a cute fat.

So, what to do, what to do? Really, all of this stuff started out innocently enough but has somehow grown to overwhelming proportions. I don’t want to have that stressed out feeling all the time, which was all too common for me in Tallahassee. And I have little time for the stuff I really want to do like going to this writing workshop on Thursdays.

Woodstock says I say yes to much, and maybe that’s true. But now that I’ve agreed to do stuff, how do I maintain my sanity and still get everything done?