I said yes, I will yes

During my undergraduate years, I spent 10 weeks traveling through England, Ireland, and Wales. I have many good memories of this time, but the downside was it meant having to
read...
attempt to read...
suffer through James Joyce's Ulysses.

Now, some people consider this book miraculous and amazing.
I was not one of those people (and am not one of those people), although I never actually finished reading it so my opinion could be ignored solely for that reason.
There is only so much stream of consciousness and lack of punctuation I can handle.

I used to think that I'd finish it if I ever found out I had a terminal illness and was relegated to my bed for six months but decided that this was a shitty way to spend my final months.

Still, 20+ years later and despite my general disregard for the book,  I do remember the end (which I think I just eventually skipped to in a fit of utter confusion and desire to be DONE).

where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I 
put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me 
under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my 
eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I 
put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes 
and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. 

This is Molly Bloom's soliloquy, and there is something about it that has stayed with me over time.

It's something about that saying yes business.

In the context of the novel, it is about her relationship with Leopold Bloom, but I think it speaks to a desire in me, which is to say yes.

As an anxious person, my go-to response on the inside is to say "no."
No--I don't want change.
No--I don't want to get out of my comfort zone.
I also have a latent lazy streak.
(Like I'm mentally lazy, but my body just won't sit still.)

The older I get, the more I'm like, "meh."

And yet, that Molly Bloom stuff. That saying yes, I will, yes.

It's true that a person can say yes to too much.
I've been rather good about setting limits for the kids and our family about what we can and will do.
The kids have never been in season after season of activities without breaks.
I think my vacation/trip-addiction is partly a need to be "away from real life/relaxation."
(There is a difference between being active because you HAVE to in your real life and being active for FUN on a trip.)

But because of my odd-job professional life, I've been able to say "yes" to a lot of stuff without it getting too hairy, at least most of the time.

Sometimes, though, everything happens at once, but as I learned in undergrad years, my best semesters happened when I took 18 hours and worked part-time. I used my time more efficiently.
I'm pretty good at that in the short-run, and most of my jobs, in their way, are short-run.
I know I won't be doing any particular job forever and forever.
They are all "for a while."

There are occasions when a person needs to say no.
I said no as a teenager when friends were drinking and driving.
I say no to drama.
(I avoid people who never got out of middle school emotionally.)
I say no 99.9% of the time to television viewing.

But, most of the time, I say "yes."