The Things I No Longer Do for People-Pleasing

I have made a quiet list this year. It is not on the fridge. It is in the back of the journal Megan gave me, in pencil so I can keep editing. The list is called Things I No Longer Do for People-Pleasing. It is short and brutal and freeing.

I no longer apologize for the state of my house when someone drops in. The house is the house. The toys are the toys. I am raising humans, not a magazine. If you came over, you came to see us, not the floor.

I no longer say yes to volunteering for things I do not have time for at the school. I love Emma's school. I love her teacher. I have served on one committee this year and that is the number I have. The number is not zero, which is what last year's me would have demanded. The number is one, which is what this year's me can carry.

I no longer make a 'real' dinner on the nights I am tapped out. Cereal is a dinner. So is buttered toast. So is leftovers eaten standing at the counter. My grandmothers fed enormous families on a lot of buttered toast nights. I am claiming my buttered toast nights.

I no longer say 'I'm sorry, this is dumb but' before I ask a question. The question is not dumb. It is the question I need answered. The 'sorry but' is a tax I have decided to stop paying.

I no longer keep a friendship going one-sidedly past the point of obvious. I have one woman in my life I texted on her birthday for six years and got nothing back. This year I did not text. The world did not end. I freed up a small piece of myself.

I no longer try to be 'fun mom' at every birthday party. I bring a kid, I bring a gift, I drink a juice box, I leave when my child is regulated enough to leave. I do not have to also bring cupcakes shaped like dinosaurs for everyone, even though I once did.

I no longer keep clothes in my closet that fit a body I haven't had since 2019. Out. Bag. Donation. Done. My current body deserves a closet full of yes.

Run today: walking with Biscuit only, the British man insists on rest. I walked far. I thought about this list. I added a line in my head: I no longer wait for permission to want my own life.

Worked Miller's. Mr. Miller and I talked, finally, about the 'few years' thing — he wants to know if I'd ever consider buying the bookkeeping side as a freelance business when he sells the store. He thinks the new owner might want to outsource it. He said, 'You'd be good at running your own thing, Lucy.' I drove home in a fog of possibility.

Kids picked up. Noah found a worm. Emma named it Geoffrey. Geoffrey has been released back to the garden, but only after a funeral was preemptively planned by Noah.

Mark home. Sloppy joe leftovers. The candle is going. Almost six. The list is getting longer. Talk tomorrow. — Lucy