Because We Carry It Well

Just because we’re capable doesn’t mean we’re not tired.

Co-written: Ruth Buchanan and Lacey Keigley

I wish this didn’t happen as often as it does.

I’m out living my life, doing what needs to be done, when someone says something like this: “Wow. I couldn’t do all that” or “I don’t know how you do it” or “I couldn’t handle it the way you do.”

And I’m never quite sure how to respond.

Because, honestly, who knows. Maybe you could. Maybe you couldn’t. But for whatever reason, you don’t have to. This isn’t your life. But it is mine, so I don’t have a choice. I have to carry the weight.

How do you do it all?
I could never do that.
I couldn’t live your life.

Yeah, I’m fairly confident that statement or that question is intended as a compliment of sorts.

And yet.

It never quite feels like one.

“You’re braver than me.”

No. I am not.

My choices are different, maybe. Because they have to be.

“I could never do that alone.”

Maybe you could. Maybe you couldn’t. But you haven’t had to find out. Me, though? I have no choice. It’s either do it alone, or it doesn’t happen. 

“I don’t know how you do it all.”

Well, I don’t either. All I know is that one way or another, it has to get done.

But just because I carry it well doesn’t mean I’m not tired.  

This is my situation.

Most women I know don’t plan to be single in mid-life. But it still happens. And when it happens to you, it’s no longer a matter of whether you feel capable of “doing all that on your own.” 

It is now your reality. You just have to do it. 

Life comes at you fast—especially when you have no partner and no safety net. 

Whether you’re a never-married single at the age of forty-five (Ruth) or a single-again parent at the age of fifty (Lacey), it matters less how you got here and more how you’re going to make it through.

And making it through is no joke. 

Grown single women have a lot to do, and many of us seem good at doing it—at least, when viewed from the outside. We run our own businesses, take care of the house, the car, the yard, the finances, the shopping, the meal prep, the vacation plans, the bathroom remodel. The pets, the kids, the plants—whatever dependents we have in the mix.

But let’s be honest. I don’t do all this because it’s ideal. I do this because I have to. 

On most days, I’m very proud of myself for stepping up.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not tired.

I’m so tired.

We look at any life circumstance that isn’t ours and we sometimes feel grateful. “Wow, glad I don’t have to go through that situation.”

We see what someone else has conquered or overcome, and we can think to ourselves, “I could never live through that fill-in-the-blank experience.”

Except, of course, the truth is we could.

We don’t want to. We hope we don’t ever have to.

But we could.

You could. I can.

Because sometimes life just demands that of us.

For a day, a week, a year, a season. For what may feel like your whole life.

It’s a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, I-don’t-want-to-live in a pit-until-I’m dead-so I-better-find-another-option sort of decision that we find ourselves making when the choices grow limited.

But even a steady diet of making that sort of choice doesn’t mean I am a consistent success at overcoming. And it certainly doesn’t mean I LIKE it.

In truth, I am tired.

I’m tired of deciding what to eat over and over again. I’m tired of being the adult who absolutely cannot throw a temper tantrum and demand my way. As a kid growing up in a house with strong parental figures, I had no idea how exhausting being a Full Time Responsible Adult would be. In my home, the buck really does stop with me.

Who will file these taxes?
Who will fix the damaged vacuum cleaner?
Who will notice the leaky faucet and the swollen wooden boards by the dishwasher?
Who will investigate the thump in the attic and the skittering in the walls?

Who will car shop when the transmission bids a fond farewell?

The answer is always the same.

ME.

Sometimes people get it. Sometimes they don’t. Either way, they seem to have something to say.

The phrases that don’t actually help.

Please don’t think I haven’t said or felt similar things when I look at someone else’s situation. This may be a rant, but it’s a semi-self-aware one. I can easily think of a dozen situations of loved ones and people I watch from afar where I currently think, “I could never do that” or “How are they managing that?” or “I don’t know how they do it.”

Sure. Yes. Pot. Kettle. All that.

It’s just, having been on the receiving end of such comments and knowing how they can land, I don’t want to say it out loud. 

But I still want to recognize that I see them—that I’m in wonder of all they do—maybe even in awe.

So what can we all do instead?

What other words can we say?
What other thoughts can we think?

What other approaches can we take to processing our lives?

What would be more helpful?

Like the better part of self-help, I think simple is best here. Straightforward. Less is more.

What does every human being that ever breathed on this planet actually want?

To be seen.
To be known.
To be understood.

To be loved, as we are and where we are.

So in an impossible situation NOT within someone’s exact control, verbally communicating that they are unique and alone and one-of-kind is sort of the opposite of constructive.

How about a few phrases like this instead:

“I see you. I think you’re strong, even when you don’t really want to be.”

“I know it’s a lot. Just because you’re doing a great job doesn’t mean it isn’t hard.”

“I think you’re doing good work. I appreciate that. I wish you didn’t have to do that work alone—but I’m proud of you.”

“I love watching how you take on the world. I don’t know what goes into it, but from the outside, it’s a sight to behold.”

Imagine running into a busy mom friend in a grocery store. She has several young children hanging on her cart and under her cart and wandering away from her cart. If you say to this tired mom, “You sure have your hands full,” or laugh and say, “I don’t know how you do it!” have you made anything better?

Nope.

She knows her hands are full. She’s plenty aware.

But if you say, “You’re doing a good job today” and offer a wide smile, maybe that’s better. 

Maybe you purchase her a candy bar and say, “Have this when the kids nap today.” 

Or, if you know her well, you can arrange to stop by for a few hours to watch the kids so she can investigate the thump in the attic.

Or strap on your head lamp and go with her so she doesn’t have to be brave by herself.

Just because she carries it well doesn’t mean she has to keep carrying it all alone. 

And maybe that’s the gem we’re mining for here. The nugget, if you will. The real answer to the question. 

Maybe it’s action.

Providing tangible ways to help carry the load. Shouldering a bit of the burden.

Sometimes the action really is just verbal. Acknowledgment is more powerful than you think. 

“I see you. You’re rocking it today, even if your t-shirt tag is under your chin instead of its standard position.”

And sometimes the action is physical. 

“Here are six links to cars in your price range. I know you’ve been looking for a new ride.”

Every one of us is tired.

Every one of us is overwhelmed.

Hand on a shoulder, friend to friend, we just might make it through.

---

Ruth here.

This essay is the fruit of a conversation Lacey and I had back in October of 2023 as we were carpooling to a weekend writers’ conference. We were both in the middle of a particularly busy and frenetic season (really, when is it not a busy and frenetic season?), and a few of our friends, knowing everything else that was going on in our lives, seemingly in awe that we’d manage to carve out space to attend a weekend conference, had uttered a few versions of those comments you see in the opening of this essay.

“I don’t know how you do it” and “I couldn’t handle all that the way you do.”

Dragging ourselves into the car and careening down I-385 South, all frizzy-haired and crusty-eyed from the stress of tying up loose ends in time to get on the road and not miss the opening sessions, neither of us felt we were handling things particularly well.

But handling things we were—simply because we had no other option.

Almost immediately, we outlined this essay and decided to write it together.

As we said in the closing, every one of us is tired. Every one of us is overwhelmed. Our goal here was not necessarily to say we have it worse than anybody else but to pull back the curtain and reveal what our tired-and-overwhelmed looks like, because (as we’ve discovered) we apparently carry it well. So well that you may not know we struggle unless we tell you.

It’s my hope that this sort of openness and honesty can put us all in better positions to, as Lacey articulates it so well there at the end, walk with “Hand on a shoulder, friend to friend,” and help each other make it through.

We may have planned this essay in ten minutes, but due partially to the dynamics outlined herein, it took us six months to land the plane.

But never mind. Here we are. We did it, and I’m so glad—both that this essay exists and that Lacey agreed to lend her voice and her words to this space.

I’m a longtime reader and follower of Lacey’s work, and if you’re not already part of her orbit, click through and subscribe to her entertaining and insightful newsletter, So Every Day: Embracing the Ordinary.