Last night, I was so physically drained, I came home and immediately laid down on my couch. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I was not mentally drained, as one might expect, so I got to lie there and think about all the things I would like to be doing. All of the motivation, but none of the get-up-and go.
I thought about the dishwasher half-full of clean dishes that I had been taking out one at a time for the last three days. I thought of the sink full of dirty dishes waiting to take their place. I thought of floors that needed to be mopped and laundry that needed to be folded.
But mostly I thought about my daughter, who was begging me to come sit by her at the dinner table, to play with her after dinner, to help her get ready for bed.
"Mommy doesn't feel well, Sweetheart," I said, trying to help a two-year-old understand how her real-life-superhero could be down for the count.
Being the precious girl that she is, my daughter recovered quickly from her confusion and disappointment and brought me a novelty ice pack in the shape of a Band-Aid. "Mommy better?"
"Thank you, Sweetheart. That does help Mommy feel better."
Then she climbed onto my lap and we watched cartoons on my phone, while I tried to push down my guilt about allowing her too much screen time; while I tried to be present and allow myself to feel whole.
~
This morning, I woke up with all of the exhaustion and none of the motivation of the previous night.
I drug myself out of bed with six minutes to get ready before catching the last train to DC. Not the train that would get me there on time, mind you. But the last train that would get me there at all.
In those few moments, I asked myself whether I was up to this, whether six minutes was enough time to pull on clothes and get myself out the door, whether I should call out again, or ask to work from home. “I’m having a rough morning” was already a text I had sent once this week.
And so I did it, if just barely.
Today I walked into work 30 minutes late, my hair pulled into a messy bun, wearing remnants of day-old makeup; I pulled a travel deodorant out of my drawer and brushed my teeth in the office bathroom. By all outward appearances, I am not looking particularly professional today.
But you know who will never know that? The person whose Service Desk ticket I work. The person project I finish, which allows them, perhaps for the first time, to do their daily work without headache. The person who reads this blog post and thinks “I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
Sometimes being a mom looks like laying on the couch while your child takes care of you and no one takes care of the house.
Sometimes being a professional looks like showing up and doing your job, even when (especially when) you look and feel like hell.
In the words of my favorite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke:
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
In my own words: Just be present and allow yourself to feel whole.
--Shelly Binkley
Can I offer a virtual hug?
We do what we can do, to the best of a given day's capabilites. Today's lunch for me was the fruit leftover in my Starbucks refresher drink. Tomorrow, my best might be a sandwich.
You may absolutely give me a virtual hug. And I will send one to you!
My intent in writing this was to try something slice-of-life-- to say "this is my normal, and the normal for a lot of neurodivergent folks, and that's ok." And I wanted to challenge what "professional" means. (I didn't initially set down to write that bit about my daughter, but it felt right to include it).
So don't worry about me too much! This is hardly me at my worst
I second the virtual hugs! Thank you for your transparency. You're definitely not alone. Making dinner most nights is a struggle over here. Even more so since my oldest son was diagnosed with Celiac disease and we have to be super careful with gluten. A lot of days I go to bed without all the things done (dishes, floors, etc.). There's no point in beating myself up about it. I'm only human, and I have a real human capacity.
Thank you for your honesty and sending you virtual hugs too.It's a reminder for me to be honest about my reality and remember it's ok not to be ok.
I absolutely feel all of this, we've been eating Door Dash off paper plates every night for....a while. What touched me about your post is from the perspective of a daughter whose Mom had a hard time sitting down and watching a cartoon if the dishes and laundry weren't done. You made a good choice! Sometimes just sitting down with (or on) your exhausted grownup in front of a screen and giggling at the same thing is exactly what our little ones need. The dishes can disintegrate in the washer and she'll still have that memory of you choosing her.
Messy (or in my case, still wet) buns are the new <insert stylish hairdo>!
I hear this on so many levels!!!
I too have been staring at loads of dishes, laundry, the random mess of things that need to go upstairs that my husband tidied-up by moving them from the family room to the stairs going up to our bedrooms.
My youngest, who is 4, asked me to play the other day and I was full of my typical mom excuses of all the duties that I had to accomplish before his bedtime. He was heart broken; he had gotten his new playdoh out and was ready to go. So, I promised him tomorrow we would have a playdoh date right after school. Of course, after school that day was craziness, my oldest had his band concert that night and we only had about an hour at home before we needed to run out the door again. So, I threw on a box of mac and cheese, and cooked up frozen chicken nuggets, and microwaveable vegetables; and the go-go-go trigger inside of me wanted to fit in the dishes, laundry, whatever I could to fill in that tiny bit of time. But then, my little guy said "Mommy, I'm ready for our playdoh date! Can we play pretend to cook dinner with playdoh? If I'm being honest, I really wanted to say no. But, that stuff could wait. This kid had already waited a whole day to play playdoh with Mommy. I needed to stop and be where my two feet where and play playdoh with my little man.
I've heard that mantra often lately so I'm trying it out best I can. Be where your two feet are. I'm not in my past, ruminating over what I could have done/should have done, and I'm not in the future so I don't need to worry in this moment that my kids will be well functioning adults (Like, worrying over how is my ADHD son going to get to class on time when he's in college... he's 11, I've got some time. And also, he'll be alright) I just need to be where I am.
Thanks for the solidarity :) My hair is just down in messy waves of unwashed, after gym hair...haha.