He was too polite to tell you it was OK if you wanted to drop out. Once you are used to saying “no” with no repercussions, you will feel very relieved that the responsibility will go to someone who has the time to give it their all.
I’m still in awe of how much you do IN the home as well as out of it, and I have to say, if you need to sacrifice something, don’t make it your family. You and Rob are what holds your family together and once you start withdrawing from extraneous activities at church, it will be easier to do it in other areas of your life.
Your children need you, and for the next 14 years, they will continue to do so. Do. Not. Feel. Guilty. There are other people who can step in and take up the slack at church and elsewhere, so do what you have to.
You cannot be all things to all people.
(And that includes me!)
I have this problem of wanting to do whatever people ask me, especially if they tell me they’re asking because I’d do really well at it. However, there is only one of me, and there are a lot of Them!
I was ask if I’d be interested in coordinating the next retreat, and I told them I’d think about it. However, I don’t think I can do that as well as this other committee. Norma and I were hoping that Father would say he’d make a commitment to helping to find someone totally new to lead the committee, because he wanted the best person, rather than the ones who didn’t duck fast enough ... but he didn’t.
My friend Joann is moving to South Carolina next year, and she’s looking forward to starting over and trying to keep her volunteerism under control. It reminds me of a man I met in Wilmington. He said he’d been on the Board of Directors of a Revolutionary War historic site there, and “I had to fake my own death to get off it!”