When I got a free second, and I came back to this, I truly thought about being the Keeper of All Things. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that, while typically, yes, it’s the mom, that’s not always the case. Growing up, I was always the Keeper of All Things. I was always the one who knew everyone’s birthdays. I was always the one who knew everyone’s phone numbers. I was the one who could find lost fridge items. I was the one who knew what days I was supposed to be where and what activities I had. While my mom had her calendar and wrote stuff down, I was always the one who knew it off the top of my head. While my mom was organized and could find someone’s birthday or phone number, I never needed to look it up. I was the one who would remind my mom what I had going after school and what time I would need to be picked up. I promise, my mom had no idea what I needed to take to soccer practice with me. Occasionally, I would ask where certain things were, mainly clothes, and they usually turned out to be in the wash. The difference is, if I asked for the green shirt, my mom would have no idea what green shirt I was talking about and then tell me to check the wash. My kid asks and I not only know if it’s been washed, but know the state of wash-in the machine, in the dryer, in a basket waiting to be folded, or had been folded and should have been put away. I only get tripped up when it’s something that was worn for 5 seconds and put in the hamper before I saw it being worn.
When I thought about being the Keeper of All Things even more, I thought about how it’s probably more of a personality trait. I have a male friend who is the Keeper of All Things in his family. Not that his wife isn’t the keeper of a ton of things, he’s the one who knows the schedule, knows what to pack, knows where everything is. I also see this trait coming out in Monster. We used to call him a space cadet. His head was always in the clouds. I actually wrote about going to soccer camp early to get him to start gathering all of the stuff he had taken out of his bag and left all over the place. Now, he’s the organized one. He still can’t seem to move items in the fridge to find anything, but he tends to know where all of his stuff is, what activities he has, etc, etc. A lot of it he does by memory, but he also writes everything down.
Then I started thinking about this even more. Has me being the Keeper of All Things made it so no one tries? Just ask Mommy, she’ll know. In the rare instance I don’t know, I’m met with frustration and anger. How dare I not know something that was never told to me?!?! The frustration goes both ways. Sunshine has taken dance since she was 5. She always needs her dance bag and a water bottle. How can she not seem to get those things together? Why do I always have to do it? The answer is because she knows Mommy will do it. My family has gotten lazy because they know I will handle it all. They also know that I have guilt, so I will make it happen. The other week, Sunshine forgot her water bottle at home for dance. It was a 2.5 hour dance day. She told me it was fine and didn’t need one. It was her fault for not grabbing it since I had filled it up and set it on the counter for her. Still, I had Mom Guilt that my baby was going to dehydrate. I didn’t have time to run home, so I ran to the coffee shop on the corner that sells bottled water as well. Thankfully, I’m in there a lot and know the people who work there. The line was long, I grabbed a bottle, told them I’d be back to pay for it and ran back out and ran, yes, physically ran it down to the dance studio before class started so she would have water. I then ran back to the coffee shop to pay because I didn’t want them to think I wasn’t coming back (though they know I’m always there!) The guilt had me running around to fix a mistake she made.
Being the Keeper of All Things is exhausting. The guilt that comes with things falling through the cracks. Trying to keep up with everything going on for not only everyone in my house, but now for my parents as well. I try to write down important dates, but I get sidetracked by all of the things that need to get done. I’m starting to forget what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to be and when. It’s never my kids’ activities, just mine. My poor Husband, every day, he tells me where he plans to be the next day, yet, each morning I ask, Where are you today? It’s not that I don’t care, it’s more that I know he can get himself where he needs to be. The days he’s going to be out of town, I remember because I know I’m then the one in charge of all early evening stuff. When it’s whether he’s in Cleveland or Canton, I tend to forget because both of those usually mean he’ll be home at a decent time.
I told my family something needs to change. I can’t keep going at the pace I’m going. Monster has been very helpful. He still can’t seem to find anything in the fridge, but he’s the keeper of his own schedule, he gets all of his stuff together, and he tells me when he’s down to only 3 pairs of underwear as opposed to the other two, “I don’t have any underwear left”. Husband has taken the burden of cooking dinner off my plate. I still need to figure dinner out and shop for it, but he makes it. Nights I forget to plan dinner, he takes over. I know my personality is to always be the Keeper of All Things, but it’s nice to have a little help remembering now and then. Also, a shout out to my friends who keep me in line saying, I thought your kid had this or that today after school? Yep, you’re right! Thanks for the reminder!