Why “Low Maintenance” Women Are Usually Just Overtrained

I don't know why you tout yourself as low maintenance or seek to be unobtrusive. 

Me? Well. When you're born 10 years after your parents' last child and despite birth control🤷🏽‍♀️

It wasn't anything specifically they intentionally did - we wanted for nothing as long as my dad lived. It was the thrusting of my mother into single mom-hood (and single grandma to an already single mother) that made life rough. My dad passed after being sick.

Coupled with being overlooked or not taken seriously while my parents were away for dad's treatment - I learned to shrink. Financial limitations taught me what was priority and what was not. Birthday gifts were not. Cable tv was not. It was easier to ask for nothing because it eased the guilt my mom felt for not being able to provide it and prevented my disappointment in hearing no. I couldn't make my mother feel worse when she was doing the very best she could. So presence became a definite way I felt secure in some cases. 

What's crazy is, I lavish the people I love when I can. Something they've wanted or needed or keep putting off or felt like they would never get- that's how I give gifts or just because. If it is going to make their life easier? I'm on it!

Even in supporting goals and dreams. I have had no second thought in rearranging my life to accommodate everyone else's goals. I would just have to figure out mine later. I guess.

Is that you? Everyone's cheeredless cheerleader? Exhausted. Zoned out. One eye on the family and the other eye on the clock, calendar, and cemetery? 

For my birthday meal last year, my love and our kids put in work in the kitchen. What I felt as they scurried about, and finally revealed - hit me like a bus at high speed.

All I did was dare to say I am not saying anything about my birthday. Every year I pull off four different meals, four different cakes and four different gifts for four different birthdays. Often alone. This year for me - you guys figure it out!

The realization? They're listening. Paying attention. And can rise when left to get it done. I was presented with food I had mentioned a few times I was craving. I hadn't even thought about it until that night!

You don't have to burn it all down in one go. Start small.

Low maintenance women rarely exist.

Overtrained women do.

Women like us learned early that needing less made life easier for everyone else.

The quiet rebellion begins the moment you stop performing that role. It was a role we learned so well that we forgot it was a role at all.

Start letting yourself need things again.

Part of those reflections still lives on this post from my older blog.

Discoveries Reprogramming

Reading it now, I can see it clearly.

I wasn’t low maintenance. Just overtrained. And over performing.

What would happen if you let go of one small thing?