i don't have silence enough in my mind to concentrate on the philosophical aspect of my life and the weight of everything on my shoulders. i don't have seconds alone enough to type out deep-hidden thoughts, the things buried in my brain, the constant soundtrack of ongoing processing, that screeching of data going by and the creation of it via magic dust into information and knowledge. there's no time to think. there is only the moving through my life just now. no time for figuring or imagining. no time for analyzing or calculating. just the list in my hand of the things to be done. just the rags in my hands, the babies in my hands, the dishes washed and the laundry done. there is but the going to the grocery and the going on walks to enjoy the springtime. the waking from a long sleep and having no thoughts, just a relaxed brain, focused on the tasks before it. i am doing the things i always do - the tending and the washing. i am doing, as always, the things that must be done. will there be time for me one day soon? will i tire of this? of being the support for everyone around me, the thing on which to lean, the tool for their activity, the aid for the accomplishing of everyone else's goals? am i sick of this? do i want more than this? do i want something to do that feels like something? something with a sense of accomplishment rather than constant toil? is that the sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind? is that this urge, this move forward, out of the darkness of winter and into the light of action? am i lacking of something that is me, something else that i can commit myself to? am i truly experiencing the life of those around me, dedicated to it as i am, to making their urges and desires possible and thus not living myself, thus filled with a hole where a purpose should be? and what is there to be done about it? these people need this caring. my family is in great need of my support. don't they? or is that the story i tell myself to make the work feel important? maybe it's just the influence of this culture that doesn't value anything that doesn't earn a dollar (or doesn't give a dollar because it doesn't value it). maybe it's the influence of the women i see and read about who have lives outside of families or at least seem to. it's a dreadful sacrafice to make and it sucks that it must always be either this or that and never can the balance be struck when it all rests on women. i know our brains our generally designed to some degree for caretaking, but they are capable of so much else as well, and my hands that cleanse and scrub and pick up shoes start to feel so empty.