05 May Day 57 of self-quarantine

I’m not gonna lie. We’re unraveling here.

Keeping in mind this is the cocoon. We will move through this. We will emerge.

The way I was glued to Cuomo’s updates these past weeks, waiting for the day that we could see that New York had passed the apex of the outbreak, I’m here in this moment wondering if this is our apex. It has to be.

The apex. The crowning. This is it. I’m sure it could get worse, but I really don’t want it to. I want this to be the worst it gets.

My problems are ones of privilege. We aren’t hungry. We aren’t unsafe. Nobody is sick or dying. Worse problems exist. We are still in a position to help people rather than being people who need help.

Saturday I laid in bed until 3 looking at gifs of Kristoff from Frozen.

Something about him tickles my brain in a happy way.

He can pick Anna up so easily, just hold her close and keep her safe. But he doesn’t get in her way or tell her what to do. He’s just there. He can sing and play the lute and lift heavy things and share his feelings. He reminds me of the best parts of Cory.

I know my kids need me to be stronger. I’ve had a few different moments where I felt physically unable to move. Depression, I guess, sitting on my chest like a heavy cat. It’s not the way I remembered, but I’m 25 years older than I was the last time it came after me.

I don’t know where the line is between self-care and being a lazy terrible mom. My Mimi pointed out that I am emotionally exhausted. There are some things Mimi knows that you don’t know, and I’m not ready to talk about those things in public yet. But she is right.

But I know the ingredients to a healthy mind. The right food. Iron. Water. Exercise. Sleep. Fresh air. Shower. Get dressed. Call someone. Tell someone. Ask for help. Do something nice for yourself like a bath or listening to music. Three out of five members under this roof are in counseling right now. I know where the rungs to the ladder are. I’m reaching for them. Today I showered, I ran around the yard with Henry, I ate, I drank water, I talked to my mom and Mimi. I breathed deep. I had patience.

Today’s dilemma is with overcoming Mom Guilt. Trying to hit that perfect balance between being there for my kids who are suffering in their own way during this crisis, needing us more than ever. And also getting my work done.

It’s easy to say, go easy, spend time with the kids, assess your priorities, they need you, they’re number one. And make time for self-care.

Until you get emails from clients who are completely accurate in that you didn’t take care of things 100% the way you would have pre-pandemic. My business is my first baby. It’s our income. I pride myself on being there for people when they need me. Often that does mean working during bedtime or dropping everything during dinner due to a work emergency. Our pandemic work hours are fragmented, interrupted, and unpeaceful. Cory and I don’t communicate with each other as well as we’d like to. We are tweaking our daily schedule every day to try and do things better, more efficiently, to get to everything. To tend to our business AND our kids’ needs. Business is picking up, which is lovely! But also terrifying. (I know if I laid in bed less on a Saturday I could get some work done. I think that was a necessary recharging of the run-down batteries, though.)

Last week we took away the Minecraft and phone time. They get PBS Kids on the TV and that’s it. Henry hacked into the phone I was letting him use and downloaded apps using the passcode he got using a screen recorder.

So there goes the concept of just relaxing on the video games and letting them enjoy some screen time while we get some work time in with less interruptions.

This is hard, yo.

Any tips for keeping three children of different ages occupied? Two different friends just suggested working in the car which I think is brilliant. I’m going to try that. Tomorrow is another day!

And how are you doing? I don’t want to hear that you’re doing terribly, but in some ways that would actually make me feel better.

I’m hitting publish in the hopes that sharing how terribly I’m doing will help YOU feel better.

Hang in there.

(Also, sorry not sorry for all the Kristoff gifs.)

Share & Follow!