The help

I’d say I’m approaching burnout. But it’s approached me.

Not just approached — but, rather, chloroformed me, put a bag over my head, threw me in the trunk and drove me over the state line.

My nerves are so shot they don’t feel anything anymore. And that’s reason alone to be nervous.

That’s because, the moment my anxiety dissipates, something big happens. “Whatever” ends in its current form. Whether it’s good or bad remains to be seen. Everything changes, but whether it’s for the good or bad depends on the environment.

There was a moment in “Scandal” about two weeks ago when Olivia Pope’s mother told her that she’ll never be more than “the help” to Fitz’s presidential administration.

In other words, he’ll never marry you. He’ll never really consider you a member of Team Fitz. You are just the maid hired to clean up all his messes and prevent new disasters from derailing his re-election campaign.

I am the help. I’m good at it. I make an amazing No. 2. But is that my peak?

I think they mean what they say that if I can just deal with being the help now, I’ll be glad I did because it will all pay off.

I mean, I’m more or less OK where I am. I just feel like I have to kill myself to keep up with all of life’s demands. I do it to eventually achieve balance. But why must it be an absolute imbalance across all life’s domains in the meantime?

But if what it takes to get ahead is giving more, more, more and what’s left of me is getting less and less, I wonder if “staying in place” should be my goal because, more and more, it’s feeling like my only option.

And the older/tired-er I get, the more I see how people become OK with that.

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