Don't Should All Over Yourself

I was going to write a post about guilt, feeling inspired by something Jenny Crusie wrote and posted on Reinventing Fabulous (http://reinventingfabulous.com/?p=899), and because her post got this song stuck in my head and I can't find it anywhere ("I'm unworthy. Yes, no matter what I'm doing, I should certainly be doing something else. And it's selfish to be thinking I'm unworthy, all this me, me, me, me, self, self, self, self." It's hilarious and wonderful and if you find it, please let me know.) But my first few lines sounded terrible, so I deleted it and now I've been staring at a) a blank screen or b) my best friend telling me to write about buying a vineyard and moving to Italy because that's our new "plan" for the last 10 minutes or so.
Ugh. I should have something to say. I started this whole stupid project.
Oh, look what I did there. I should-ed. Bad, bad business.
And, interestingly enough, should-ing gets us back to guilt.
Why do we feel guilt? Because we should have done something, and we didn't. Well, where the heck does this obligation came from? From whence the should? Is it from society, from our loved ones? Well, sometimes yes. There are a lot of should's that come along with being a woman. We should be pretty, but not high-maintenance. We should be sexy, but only a little bit, and only for our chosen partner (who probably should, according to some small-minded jerkwads, be male). We should be sensitive, but not whiny. We should be confident, but not cocky. We should be assertive, but not bitchy. But I think, most often, those damn shoulds that pile up so high that we want to scream, come from ourselves.
For example, my husband has never once said, "I want dinner ready when I get home." For one thing, he knows better. However, I make it this big should thing. I should have the apartment clean when he gets home. I should have dinner ready, or at least well on its way to being ready. And on the occasion when I don't feel particularly well and I lay down as soon as I get home, I feel guilty for not having accomplished that should.
And when I think of all these damn shoulds, I realize that I had shoulded myself into a pretty serious depression a few years ago. I'm not discounting the fact that I probably had something chemically wrong with me, but there was a lot of should-ing going on as well.
And I'm still bloody doing it. Look at my reason for starting this blog: I should know what I want from my life by the time I turn 30. Well, what happens if I don't? What happens if I never really know what I want? What if I'm never a real "adult"? Am I just creating another massive should that I may never accomplish, and therefore creating just one more massive occasion to feel guilty?
I don't know. Maybe.
But maybe now that I know about the dangers of should, maybe I can look at the blog as more of an exercise. Not that this process should result in my being an adult, with a clear sense of purpose and follow through, but that this space is a place for me to explore any and all possibilities that I see.
Even buying a vineyard in Italy. ;)