All I Do is Handle

I wanted to reflect on the grief of seeing how friendships change once you prioritise yourself.

All I do is handle...I never live.

Every day I wake up knowing that my 24 hours will be on loan.

I feel like I don't live my life.

I get out of bed, and I start sorting out things for my Mother - mop a floor, get some wood, set the fire.

I don't mind helping her, she's my Mother, but it's rarely received with gratitude.

Hard work should earn me a thank you, rather than asking me to do another easy to do, task.

I know it's nothing, but why is it always on me?

My shoulders feel heavier - harder to carry.

Anyway, the day goes on.

Work comes next, and I have to handle a thousand tasks at work - cleaning part of a college, all the while paranoid about how my work will be judged by someone who didn't do a damn bit of it!

I'm not against criticism, but 95% clean is clean.

It's like that meme of a manager opening up a restaurant in the morning and finding one strand of hair on a table.

In their mind, the place was never cleaned.

Maybe it's a student or a teacher, but life would be so much easier if they could watch a

Time-lapse of you working.

They could see me sweating like a madman, trying to clean 15 rooms, mop, sweep, wipe tables, hoover, and clean two toilets, all the while I'm being interrupted or asked to help with something else.

60 seconds. 60 minutes, gone as quickly as snapping your fingers.

When I come home, it takes me ages to turn off...I'm still in work mode.

Keeping busy doesn't stop your mind from racing, it just filters out the toxic noise - ten seconds

out of every minute.

I sit down and breathe, I shower...But I never get used to the noise.

My evening isn't relaxing - I don't enjoy games, I don’t enjoy TV...I just try to get back to the

ground.

And then...they appear.

My friends.

They bring their problems to me, problems I've advised them on a hundred times over, and I sit

there, dying inside, wondering why I ever speak.

I know I sound selfish, but I'm truly not. I think...I think I've just run out of empathy.

I'm civil.

I'll help you if you need it... But I just don't care anymore.

They never tell you about the weight of life; carrying your problems and other people's too.

dealing with your parents, dealing with work...you're that last bit of toothpaste in the tube, and someone is trying to squeeze you out.

I want to be a good person, I am as much as life allows, but I can't be everyone to everyone.

I manage people, and I don't get paid for it.

I'm an old mule, carrying things up a hill as my legs beg to be still.

I handle life like it's my purpose, but I never paid for this order - it's too much!

Change how you act with the people closest to you and see how everything freys.

You'll go from being the guy they smile at...to the one they talk about behind your back.

They will call you selfish for thinking about yourself, for calling out their BS...And then, like a

silent snowball to the face, you feel a sudden but clear pain...everything has changed, and it will stay painful.

All I do is handle...I never live.

I need to own my life again.

Shedding skin doesn't make you a snake.

About the Writer: Craig Lowe is a poet and creative writer from Greater Manchester. He graduated from Edge Hill University in 2021, having studied creative writing. He has been published in two dozen magazines and has previously worked as a Script Reader.