Julie’s News from Maryland

I’ve always been good at task management.  I am nothing if not a good task administrator.  I’ve even been pretty good at delegating as a task manager - finding the right people on my team and assigning the work accordingly.  In fact, sometimes I think I’m better at managing other people doing the work than I am at actually doing the work myself. 

However, none of this is true in my personal life.  I’m a “do-it-myself” kind of gal.  And I’m not really sure why.  Maybe I’ve really bought into the culture’s myth that I have to do it myself. Relying on others is a sign of weakness, so if I can’t do it all myself I must be week.  Maybe it is a deep sense of responsibility that I’ve picked up along the way - the notion that I have to be responsible for myself and I can’t burden others with my trouble.   Whatever it is and wherever it came from, it is there.  I can and will do it myself, all by myself.

But, as it turns out, that can’t always be true.  As of late, I’ve found myself overwhelmed with the number of things that need to get done. Some are small things (like signing Ella up for gymnastic lessons) and some are big things (like hiring a babysitter or finding a new place for us to live when our lease ends in May).  I’ve been looking at this huge pile of crap that needs to be done and just don’t even know where to start with it, so I haven’t done anything.  Unfortunately, though, stuff needs to get done.  And I finally figured out that what I need to do is to delegate.  A million people have offered to help me and I finally decided that I should avail myself of that help.

Last week I started asking for help, specific help.  So far, things are working out well.  With the help of others: I have found a house for us to rent (4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bath, a pool, and less than a mile from work!), I know where to find gymnastics classes for Ella, I have someone looking for a summer overnight camp for Nicholas, Ella had playdates for spring break, Nicholas has someone to care for him during his spring break, and my taxes are done.  Whew.  Some of the big things and some of the small things are handled.  There are plenty of other things to do, but having all of those tasks completed or in progress has taken such a huge load of stress off of me.

I don’t know why it was so hard for me to ask for help.  Maybe because it didn’t really occur to me that those were all things that others could help me do.  In any case, it has made such a huge difference for me not to be worrying about so much all by myself.

On a completely different topic, while I haven’t been blogging here much, I have been blogging at my church blog - just a few musings about Lent and some of the readings that we’ll encounter at the Easter Vigil.