The curse of a woman.

I am woman hear me roar!

Girl Power!!

Destiny's Child Independent Woman

The curse of being a woman in the year 2013.

I recently wrote a post on Facebook that read, "I hate that being a single married mom makes me feel trapped and resentful."

It wasn't receieved very positively and in fact I someone had the nerve to tell me that I should "Count my blessing that I have time to run every day."  As you can imagine that response pissed the shit outta me because 1) I thank my friends, family, and even complete strangers at least two times a month for the gift of running and 2) Why the hell should I be thankful that I have given EVERYTHING up EXCEPT running to be a full time working mother of two?!!!!  Damn it all to hell.

I am angry, and resentful and that's because I am a perfectionist and cursed by my sense of responsibility. I am not able to blow my job or my family off, I do not run away for extended amounts of time for me time, I do not have Girls' Nights Out or couple time where we fly away for a romantic weekend without kids.  I have not left this island since before my son was born (he's 5 now) and the only time I have spent an evening without my kids was when I was in the hospital with an emergency surgery.  Wait.  I can't even count that because they cut me open, woke me up, and then sent me home. Ok, then, the only time was the night before the Honolulu Marathon and that's only because we needed to be at the Starting Line by 3:30 am.

But I digress.  My real anger is directed toward the fact that we women are too good at what we do.  We fought for equality and wanted the same rights that men had.  The right to vote, the right to work outside of the home, the right to earn wages equal to men and so on and so forth.  We have worked hard to prove ourselves as equal to men in so many different aspects of life.  In doing so we shot ourselves in the foot.  Why?!!

Because men are smarter than we are!!!

Have you ever seen a man's movement to prove that they as a gender are as capable as we are in the home?!!!

Sure, we all know a few men that can cook, clean, and take care of a household as well as we do, but do you see men banding together, staging protests, burning their jock straps to be looked upon by society as serious contenders in the home-making department?!  HELL to the NO! They don't want our jobs in the home and we enable them to never have to!!!

I have talked to a million of my girlfriends who are as angry and frustrated as I that they need to work outside of the home AND take care of the household and yet they also admit in the same conversation that they do everything for their husband because they don't "trust" them to do a good job, OR it's "easier to just do it myself because he'll do it wrong."  Some of my friends don't want to look like a bitch, think it's their job and not their husbands, and many others have just given up.

So here we are, strong, capable women who work just as many hours outside of the home, make as much as our husbands, and still continue to carry the brunt of household chores and child-rearing.  We have worked so hard to get to where we are today and what it is is that we're doing the work of our moms and our fathers!!!  Have we evolved?  Have we won anything?  Are we better off than our mothers were?  Will our daughters be better off than we are?

I rant and rave constantly and my husband looks at me like I am a raving lunatic and goes on with his life.  A month ago I asked him to clean out the two cars. I ended up doing one but am still waiting for him to clean the other.  I watch him step over messes, yell at him, then pick them up myself.  I leave him notes, text him messages and he still gets it wrong so I end up doing it for him.  I am my own biggest enemy.  My sense of responsibility and my need for organization breeds this vicious cycle that I will probably never be able to escape.

And even worse?  I pick up after my son when he complains that cleaning is too hard.  I give my daughter jobs in the home that I let my son skip.  I make my daughter responsible for looking after my son.  I further reinforce these awful stereotypes with my own children even though I know it is wrong. It is such a difficult cycle to break!!!

So what's the answer?  I have no idea.  I rant and rave, I get more and more angry. I continue to try different things and I lean on my girlfriends that are experiencing the same frustration.  And yes, I run. I run strong, and long, and far away from home to escape the noise, the crying, the needing and my reality.