On dish soap, invisible responsibility, and occasionally wanting everyone to need us just a little less.
“The dish soap is running low. Do we have extra?”
My husband asked me this recently while standing in the kitchen.
Under ordinary circumstances, this would be a perfectly reasonable question. Except I had shown him where we keep the extra cleaning products many times. And unless I am remembering an entirely different grocery trip, he was with me at Lazy Acres when we bought multiple bottles of dish soap.
To be clear, he had not volunteered for this outing. I had coerced him into going to the grocery store with me and then further manipulated him into the cleaning product aisle.
Still, he was there.
He saw the dish soap. He witnessed it enter the cart. At the very least, he was an eyewitness to the purchase.
We didn’t just have extra dish soap. We had purchased the extra dish soap together.
The practical answer was simple: “Yes. Under the sink.”
The answer in my head was slightly different:
Why am I the household inventory system?
Of course, it wasn’t really about soap.
It was about being the person who knows where everything is, what everyone needs, and what is supposed to happen next. The person who remembers the appointment, replaces the empty bottle, responds to the email, figures out dinner, and knows whether there is another dish soap waiting under the sink.
It is not only the doing. It is the noticing. And then remembering what happened after something was noticed.
That part is harder to explain because so much of it happens quietly. No one sees the running list in your head or hears the internal reminders firing throughout the day. To everyone else, things simply get handled.
When you are capable and have spent years proving that you can handle a great deal, people naturally begin bringing you more things to handle.
I should acknowledge that I helped create this.
I like being capable. I like being dependable. I genuinely love taking care of the people in my life. There is satisfaction in knowing that my family can count on me and that the people I work with trust me to find an answer.
I am also very quick to provide that answer.
Sometimes I answer before the other person has finished asking. Sometimes I step in because doing it myself feels faster than explaining it. Sometimes I notice what needs to be done and quietly take care of it without giving anyone else the opportunity.
Competence has consequences.
The more you demonstrate that you can carry, the more everyone assumes you are comfortable carrying.
Most of the time, I am.
Until suddenly I’m not.
Usually, it isn’t one enormous request that pushes me over the edge. It is the accumulation of small ones. A question from the kitchen. A “quick” work text. A decision about dinner. A request for information that someone else could probably find with thirty seconds of investigation.
Nothing is particularly unreasonable on its own. Together, these things can make you want to quietly walk out the front door and keep going until no one knows where to find you.
Then comes the guilt.
Because I love these people.
I am grateful for my family, my work, and the full life I have built. I don’t want to wish away this season of being needed. I know there may come a time when the house is quieter and fewer people are looking to me for answers. Honestly, even thinking about that makes my heart hurt a little. I may miss being so necessary.
But I am learning that gratitude does not cancel out exhaustion. Both can be true.
I can love taking care of the people in my life and still want someone to take care of me once in a while.
I can appreciate being the person everyone depends on and still want a break from being the person everyone depends on.
Sometimes I don’t want to stop being needed. I just want everyone to need me approximately 17 percent less.
Enough to notice the dish soap is running low, check under the sink, and remember that we bought the extra bottles together.
Enough to make a plan without asking me to approve every step.
Enough to occasionally say, “I’ve got this,” and mean the whole thing. Not merely the portion that happens after I explain where everything is and what needs to be done.
Because underneath the desire to be needed less is another question:
Who takes care of the person taking care of everyone?
I don’t think most of us are asking someone to rescue us from the lives we worked hard to build. I know I’m not. I would simply like to feel, every so often, that someone else has been paying attention to me, too.
Care does not always require a grand gesture or a weekend away. Sometimes it is making the reservation, replacing the empty bottle, or handling the problem from beginning to end.
Sometimes it is someone noticing that you are tired and saying, “I’ve got this one,” before you have to ask.
Sometimes care is simply giving the usual caretaker a few minutes when nobody needs an answer.
That is what was on my mind when I wrote Issue 01 of Us, Actually. I had a feeling I wasn’t the only woman who loved being needed and also felt tired from carrying so much of what other people never see.
The letter does not offer a new system for eliminating the mental load or creating a perfectly balanced life. I certainly haven’t figured that out. And this is not another assignment asking women to become calmer, more organized, or better at managing everyone’s needs.
It offers something simpler. Recognition. A little company. A moment to exhale and remember that feeling this way does not make you ungrateful. It makes you human.
Because sometimes the person taking care of everyone does not need another strategy.
She needs someone to see how much she is carrying.
I love taking care of you.
I’m grateful that you need me.
Sometimes I would like to feel cared for, too.
And every once in a while, I would really love it if you could check under the sink before asking me about the dish soap.
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