There are many parts of parenting that you can’t fully understand until you’re completely in the thick of them.
We all know we’ll love our babies … but we don’t fully understand how that love can be so all-consuming and so wonderful that it borders on physically painful. (My heart hurts when you’re sad? My body aches when I’m away from you? That’s literal!)
We all know that motherhood is exhausting … but we don’t fully understand how it’s possible for a human to get so little sleep for years and not keel over.
And we all know that life gets busy when you have kids … but we don’t fully understand just how busy. And this is where I’m getting tripped up right now. Because it’s not just the schoolwork and play dates and doctor’s appointments and dinner-making and school-shopping and everything else that goes along with being a personal assistant to two tiny (or not-so-tiny anymore) humans. It’s the mental clutter that goes along with all of it too.
Because, of course, parenting does not happen in a vacuum. While being an all-star juggler, entertainer, therapist, teacher, chauffeur, chef and drill sergeant, you still have to manage a household, maintain life commitments, work a whole heckuva lot, and deal with stressful family situations. Once you add all that in, you have a recipe for … well, whatever the heck my life is right now.
Yes, I check off most of the things on my to-do list (eventually). But my brain never stops. It’s always low-key humming with all the things, for the kids and for work. And a lot of the time, it is full-on yelling at me. It doesn’t stop until I pass out—and I do mean pass out. Things have been particularly stressful over the past year, so in an effort to claw back some time for myself, I tend to stay up too late and pass out on the couch, completely failing to actually get any “me” time and waking up a few hours later, dazed and confused. It’s not the most restful thing in the world.
I know that I’m a healthier person when I get that mental time. I’m a better parent, I’m more present, I’m more creative, and I’m just more of the me I want to be. I don’t miss my life before becoming a mom—truly, not even a little bit—but I do miss the way my brain used to have some breathing room. It would come up with some pretty cool and creative concepts, and that calms. me. down. The thing is, my brain needs healing time as much as my body, especially when it’s been through something tough.
Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking: Take a day off! Get a babysitter! Prioritize what you need to do for you. And that’s great advice! But a few hours to get my life in order ends up being just that—running errands so life is literally in order so we all eat and aren’t living in a disaster zone. A few hours to myself in reality means decompressing, shifting into a lower gear and very possibly staring vacantly at the wall. And, of course, in any of these situations, I am battling the constant mom guilt that my late best friend would have warned me against—worrying about all the things I should be doing instead of prioritizing myself.
I have realized recently that the ideal amount of time for any sort of proper reboot is three days: one day to do errands and life stuff, one day to spend with the kids, and one day to be me and do all the interesting, creative things that make me tick. By day three, my brain gets back to some sense of normalcy. The clutter clears out as much as it ever will, and for a few hours, I’m me again. It’s pretty miraculous.
Maybe on one of those miraculous days I can figure out how to finagle a three-day weekend every weekend!
Tell Us: How do you clear the clutter from your brain?
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