Letting People Walk All over You or Not

I had a talk with Daughter the other day which I didn't enjoy giving but which I thought was important to give her.  She does not as yet have the self confidence I wish her to have.  She doesn't like being in the limelight and questions her talents even when everyone else acknowledges them. 

A recent play date went off brilliantly except when her friend thought that Daughter had let her have the bracelet she let her wear during dress up time.  When I found out I let her know that she needed to make amends as I'd just bought it as a gift for her less than a week ago, and it wasn't cheap.  In the end, Daughter did manage to hold on to the bracelet but by offering a choice of another bracelet which she told her friend she'd made herself for her.  However friend was a bit grumpy after that and demanded some other gifts to make her stop being a grouch. 

A week or two later I reflected back and realised that the said friend always was very assertive and demanding (for toys and trinkets) whenever she was over.  And we, both me and Daughter had never said no to her.  Even when Daughter had managed to salvage precious bracelet on last occasion, she had not done so in a forthright manner.  It was lucky for her that said Friend had fallen for the bait for the other bracelet!

I told Daughter that she needed not to be a walk over like I had been until only recently.  I admit, I have always found it hard to say no to people even when I knew that they were clearly taking advantage of me, and would never return the favour, judging from their past behaviour.  I explained to her about the "survival of the fittest rule" and how most people always followed that rule.  Soft people ended up being taken advantage of and victims and hard people went ahead.  I know that this may have been a bit too early to break such mean news to her but she needs to beware earlier than I became so.  It's hard to teach this old dog (i.e moi) new tricks.  The earlier the lesson learnt, the better.

It's only recently that I have started getting a bit tough on "friends".  There are "friends" who never ever invite us over when we are in town, and have frankly jumped to stay at our place, wherever we happen to be.  There are friends who write for information whenever they need it, but don't bother to write back when I try to get in touch.  There are "friends" who don't pick up the phone when I call, with the aid of their smart phones which send me straight to voice mail, but only when they don't need anything from me.  And for these "friends" until recently I would move heaven and earth to please them.  It's only this year I realised that I need to stop being a walk over.  I don't want Daughter to wait as long as I did.

Tiredness

So this post comes months later from the previous one and the reason has been given in the title.  Tiredness.  Yes, I am so much more tired these days than I remember being in the past.  And the days seem way shorter. 

I was trying to decide yesterday whether I have really reason enough to feel so much more tired these days, or whether it's just the dreaded getting older bit.

Well, this year has been the mother of all years for bad luck for my family.  We have had pretty much continued sicknesses to deal with since April.  My old daily maid left, and my dish washer conked out pretty soon after that.  Which means more daily washing up, a task I detest and I have not done by hand ever since I can remember.  H has been sick on and off since April, so the things he used to give me a hand with have gone down significantly. 

We had to fumigate the whole apartment recently for which we put away huge amounts of things in boxes and they had to be unpacked.  Speaking of packing/unpacking we had rather a lot of trips which we went on which increased the work load when we come back (pack/unpack)

The school run has become horrendous.  Daughter's school starts half an hour earlier and ends half hour later.  Because the commute is much worse I'm spending double the time travelling.  Before April, H used to drop her off 5 days a week and then it suddenly went down to zero.  Now, slowly he's gone back to 2 days a week. 

Daughter's homework load has quadrupled.  She often needs supervision so the rest I used to give myself in the afternoons has pretty much disappeared.

Psychologically it has been a trying year.  And when one worries or is depressed, tiredness follows. 

I had given up doing so many things I used to do before if not religiously, at least much more frequently than I do now.  Things I gave up include doing yoga, hitting the gym atleast 2 to 3 times a week.  My skin had also started reflecting all the stress I was going through and I had the worst skin and hair this year than I remember having since after having my baby. 

Anyway, recently, about a month ago I guess, I stopped waiting for things to get better.  I decided to accept as much as possible that this is the new reality.  And get back with baby steps to the way things were.  So this week I have managed to do yoga twice (perhaps for 10-15 minutes max) and hit the gym (again not more than 20 minutes each day).  Have also finally started some at home solutions in an attempt to revive my much troubled skin.  And gone back to blogging. 

So here goes.  after 4 months I have finally stopped waiting and just started accepting.