They Have To Sleep Eventually

I haven't talked to my dad face to face in almost fifteen years. Fifteen years since I hugged him. Fifteen years since I heard his voice. Fifteen years since he walked this Earth. I started thinking about what our conversation would look like if I could sit down with him just one more time. Just one more heart to heart - this time at the age of 37 instead of 22. Prior to his death, as I was getting older, I started to cherish and NEED those interactions with him.  I miss that the most. He was so calm and laid back and wise. He was a perfectly healthy, non-smoking, non-drinking 43-year-old when a stroke took him from us. I miss him, terribly. I picture us sitting in a diner somewhere having coffee. He and I shared a love for coffee early on. I think I was 15 when I first started drinking it with him. I'd steal cups from the pot that my mom would brew for him and eventually it became our thing. "Hey Nic, wanna cup of coffee?" If I close my eyes, I can hear his

Ahhh, mom-guilt. It's that overwhelming feeling that we shouldn't be doing something/anything for ourselves.  The kids come first. Our significant other comes first. Our aging parents come first. Our jobs come first. Our housework comes first. Basically everything comes before ourselves.  It's like there is an imaginary rule book that says once we have babies we are not important anymore. Our self care, our wants, and even our needs are put on the back burner. We stop getting pedicures, we stop buying ourselves clothes and cute shoes, we only go to the doctor for two reasons: we are deathly ill or we're pregnant. I know some of this is just the natural progression of having little humans to keep alive while trying to maintain some type of normalcy within our careers, social lives, and marriage. Regardless of the reason, mom-guilt can be overwhelming. Ok, let's be real, mom-guilt is a real bitch. It's crippling and anxiety inducing - so why do so many of us