Learning To Relax

I was a child who was designated the housekeeper.

The maid, the cleaner, the dishwasher, the vacuum, the janitor—all rolled into one. The firstborn, the one whose privileges had a price. If I wanted to go to a football game, see a movie, or visit a friend’s house, there was always a list waiting for me: clean the bathroom, sweep and mop the floors, vacuum, tidy the living room, wash the dishes. Rarely was there permission without labor.

So now, as an adult, rest doesn’t come easy. Relaxation doesn’t come free to a mind trained to believe that joy must be earned, that peace must be purchased with productivity. It’s hard to simply be.

And being a single mom doesn’t help. The duties never seem to end. The toys never find their way back into their homes. The laundry never truly disappears. The dishes always reappear in the sink. The house is alive with work, and I feel like I am always behind, always tallying, always responsible.

I spent eighteen years being taught that life was a ledger: pleasure comes only after duty, happiness only after completion. That lesson runs deep. It lingers in the corners of my mind, whispering that I cannot pause, cannot breathe, cannot simply exist. It is why it is so hard for me to be present, to let the work sit, to allow myself to rest.

But I am learning—slowly—that the ledger can be rewritten. Tiny moments of permission, moments where I sip my cocoa before the dishes are done, where I sit outside and watch the sky while the laundry waits, are revolutionary. They are acts of self-kindness, rebellion even, against a lifetime of training.

Even in the chaos, even with the mess, I can breathe. I can let go, just enough. I can allow myself the radical truth: I am allowed to exist, unburdened, even if only for a few minutes at a time. And in those minutes, I am practicing a new way of being—a way that honors both the work I do and the life I deserve to live.