Please unsubscribe me from all of the following

A running list of things I'd like to opt out of but can't.

There are few things I find more satisfying than unsubscribing—from daily emails from a store I shopped at once three years ago, loyalty programs I’ll never remember to use, or push notifications telling me my photos app made me a collage I didn’t ask for.

If I could unsubscribe from everything else hogging precious space in my brain and life, here’s what I’d click on first:

• Thinking about what to make for dinner every day until I die

• Taking inventory of our food supply while making mental grocery lists I’ll forget about when it comes time to shop

• Finding expired food in the fridge, ignoring it, then finding it again a few days later with alarming amounts of mold

• Making school lunches

• My kids saying, “I’m still hungry”

• Being interrupted twice since starting this list to give my kids food

• Dealing with everyone’s preferences, aversions, dietary needs, and restrictions

• Scheduling doctor/dentist/haircut appointments for my kids, then forgetting about them and needing to reschedule

• My kids fighting over literally everything

• Keeping track of who outgrew which shoes and locating the next-sized ones I bought months ago and stored in some mysterious spot

• Loot bags

• Comparing myself to the mom who is homeschooling four kids, raising chickens, baking bread, writing her second novel, and going viral on TikTok for her 5AM self-care routine

• The kitchen and toy explosions that magically appear five minutes after I’ve tidied up

• My kids getting sick

• Laundry—staring at it, procrastinating doing it, washing it, forgetting it in the dryer for two days, folding it, ignoring it in a basket, pretending I’ll put it away tomorrow

• Missing socks

• Applying sunscreen on my kids

• All the extra *everything* that comes with parenting neurodivergent/highly sensitive/differently-wired/“tricky” kids

• Signing them up for extracurriculars, worrying they should do more, then wishing we could just stay home and watch a movie instead

• Overstimulation from the TV, my kids yelling at the TV, Alexa, my kids yelling at Alexa, and me yelling at all of them

• Being a slave to the attention economy and doomscrolling despite reading books and listening to podcasts on how to break free

• Rising antisemitism and the extra mental load of worst-case scenarios and exit strategies

• The speed at which AI is replacing the need for humans to work, think, or create

• Tween girls shopping for anti-aging skincare at Sephora

• My kids getting bigger and older, and time doing what time does

• My declining metabolism

• Clutter—physical, mental, all of it

• The inevitable progression towards menopause

• Mortgage payments, bills, budget planning, being a financially responsible adult

• My kids still waking up at night

• All the actual email lists I’m still on

• Articles telling me to get 8 hours of sleep when I’m up at midnight watching Bachelor in Paradise
  

💌 P.S. If you enjoyed reading this post and want more like it, becoming a paid subscriber is a great way to help me justify the time it takes to write these things.

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