More Butter or Less Bread?

“Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: Like but­ter that has been scraped over too much bread.” 

—Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The first half of 2023 left me over­stretched, over­taxed, and overex­tend­ed. David quit his sec­ond job in two years when his patient load dried up and was unem­ployed while look­ing for a new posi­tion. The daugh­ter endured the whirl­wind marathon that is high school grad­u­a­tion, with the 175 events that go with it (not to men­tion the new dress­es, announce­ments, gifts, and senior pho­tos that aren’t free or cheap). She is mak­ing big life choic­es right now. What will she study? Where will she live? How will she pay for it? 

Both of those peo­ple are trig­gered by too much simul­ta­ne­ous tran­si­tion, so there were some men­tal health strug­gles to tra­verse and trau­ma to process while we reg­u­lat­ed ther­a­py and med­ica­tions. They both need me more and less in new, strange ways. Both of my in-laws had recent life-threat­en­ing med­ical emer­gen­cies. The water heater gave up the ghost, goug­ing a bud­get already tight with loans and loom­ing school costs. David and I are long­ing for and dread­ing our soon-to-be emp­ty-nest sta­tus in equal mea­sure. I turned 50 and con­tin­ue to nav­i­gate the shit­show of menopause while steer­ing the famil­ial boat as best I can. 

Oh, and did I men­tion that we did not get to see Taylor Swift and had to basi­cal­ly quit social media because see­ing every­one we know at her shows made our heads want to explode in frustration? 

Mental health prac­ti­tion­ers list the top ten stres­sors as death, divorce, mov­ing, major ill­ness, job loss, mar­riage, increased finan­cial oblig­a­tions, retire­ment, car­ing for a sick fam­i­ly mem­ber, and endur­ing a trau­mat­ic event. My 2023 life has – so far – hit a respectable 7 out of 10. Everything feels big right now. I’m jug­gling far too many tran­si­tions, respon­si­bil­i­ties, time com­mit­ments, and priorities. 

There’s too much bread and not enough butter. 

In this metaphor, bread is every respon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with being a mod­ern-day woman. The soci­etal expec­ta­tions to be a good part­ner, moth­er, admin­is­tra­tor, orga­niz­er, care­giv­er, busi­ness­woman, edu­ca­tor, dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an, cook, nurse, social media doc­u­men­tar­i­an, and prob­lem fix­er at all times. To main­tain our youth, our fig­ure, and – above all – our pos­i­tive atti­tude. As Gloria says so per­fect­ly in the Barbie movie, “It is lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble to be a woman… And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing every­thing wrong, but also every­thing is your fault.”

Now, the obvi­ous answer to spread­ing our­selves too thin is to lessen the amount of bread. Rather than try­ing to dredge up more ener­gy to tack­le the ever-mount­ing prob­lems, we pare down our lives into more man­age­able bites. We – and by we, I mean women – are told to cut out good things to make room for the best things. And by best things, I obvi­ous­ly mean our spous­es and chil­dren. Because par­ing down our prob­lems only means mak­ing per­son­al sac­ri­fices. We are wel­come to give up some­thing that mat­ters to us as long as we can con­tin­ue to hold space for our spous­es and children. 

Every woman read­ing this knows less bread is an unat­tain­able goal. 

So we must lean into a life of more but­ter instead, those resources that cre­ate resilience and joy, those things that help us melt into the moment. 

My but­ter is time off to puz­zle, sit on my porch, and read thrillers. It’s game night with the girls and bot­tom­less pros­ec­co at brunch. It’s too much sun by the pool with Lauren. It’s live music and danc­ing. It’s legs up the wall pose. It’s Thursday gui­tar lessons with Steve and Izzie. It’s my Book Club and memes from the girls and ear­ly morn­ing sweat and bitch ses­sions at the stu­dio with the Mobility Mafia. It’s tak­ing more pic­tures of my dog than my daugh­ter and telling my cat for the 17^th time what a per­fect boy he is. It’s fresh high­lights, a pedi­cure, slid­ing on my glit­tery Birkenstock dupes. It’s a rainy day nap. It’s egre­gious amounts of actu­al but­ter, salt­ed and melt­ed on bread fresh from the oven. It’s a con­scious choice to look for glim­mers and linger in them when they appear. 

When life doesn’t allow for less bread, order more butter.