2025: the year of idk wtf
Today is Monday, January 6th, the first day back at school for most people I know, the first day of the first whole work week of 2025. The weather here is abysmal - raining, windy, cold - but not cold enough to be ice or snow and keep the kids home or warrant a fire, or anything terrible / fun like that. Just cold and gross. A napping day, if you will. Guess who does not get to nap today? idk I actually might get to nap so we’ll see, I won’t complain about that yet.
With this new semester of school, I am now entering my second semester of nearly full-time caregiving for little J. After our full-time nanny quit last spring, we’ve been cobbling together childcare for both boys and I think this is all repeat information no one cares about nor cares to hear me complain about further. But C is in kindergarten now which includes after-school care, so the only kid who doesn’t have a full-time care/school situation is J. He turns 3 in March, and has 2.5 years more of preschool at a part-time schedule before he’ll also be in normal full-time public school.
Writing that out makes it sound so short, but as we all know, the days are a thousand years long with toddlers, meanwhile the years flash by like a single good episode of Bluey.
Since March, I have thought so much about childcare, the state of it in America, the privilege of not needing childcare full time and being flexible enough to make it work, being financially privileged enough that we survive on a mostly-single salary now, and of course contemplating if I should regret not putting J into “normal” day care instead of an award-winning preschool with dumb part-time schedule that only works for other also-privileged people.
It’s so hard to contemplate because we love the preschool - we loved it for C, we love it for J. It’s a magical place. It’s special - I know this intellectually - that I “get to” spend so much time with J now, when he’s not at school or when our part-time sitter isn’t here. A blessing, people say, how nice you get to be with him and really soak up this special time with him. A favorite phrase of people who either a) love young children, b) love being primary caregiver to little people, or c) are grandparents and no longer remember how difficult it is to be with toddlers constantly.
But the stress of the constantly-changing childcare schedule has been a lot to deal with, and on days when I’m struggling to be patient or having to change soiled underwear 6 dozen times in 3 hours, or when he’s screaming mad about something irrational and yelling things like NO MAMA I DON’ WAN YOU SAY OKAY, NO NUGGLES MAMA NO …it’s tough. [Yes, that was “I don’t want you to say ok,” which is a favorite phrase of his that I do not know how to deal with. Usually it’s preceded by, “I don’t want you to say that,” to which I naturally respond, “okay james” and then he moves on to tell me not to say that, and then I check myself into a psychiatric facility, the end.] It’s putting the sertraline to the test! It’s a pharmaceutical case study in managing anxiety and depression. How many times can you endure a lizard-brained 2-year-old hollering nonsensical nonsense all day followed by TWO small children yelling nonsensical nonsense at each other followed by additional nonsensical nonsense in the stupid-long bedtime routine…before you completely lose your mind!?
Sometimes I’m embarrassingly starved for grown-up convos. I get a handful of hours to work each week, and I am usually going to a coffee shop and I can FEEL myself itching to engage strangers and baristas in innocuous and/or banal chit-chat. I’m so excited to be alone and doing something just for me, it’s like I can’t stand to be the only one who knows that I’m doing it and also that I’m so excited by it. I need to share my joy of being out, alone, in the world, doing some adulting sans children, I want to share the moment with someone. Meanwhile, baristas who don’t care if you live or die are like please hurry up and decide you want the basic bitch vanilla latte and get away from me. And I’m like BUT YOU DON’T KNOW HOW THRILLED I AM TO BE ORDERING THIS AND SPEAKING WORDS TO YOU, AN ADULT, THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.
Anyway, so here I am complaining some more about my children and the burden of caring for them, when what I am really unsatisfied with is my work life. I feel extremely stuck at the moment, with a thousand paths to choose from, a bunch of ideas I like the sound of, but not a lot of clear headspace to devote to any of them, or even to figuring out which of them is most worthy or most exciting or most likely to be the funnest and even make me some money.
A long time ago I decided to stop using the phrase “I don’t have time,” using not having time as an excuse for why I wasn’t or couldn’t or didn’t or haven’t done something. Because it always felt, for me, like an excuse. I have become comfortable with knowing that I choose what I do with my time, and if I do not get something done or devote time to something, it was a choice I made.
Sometimes my choices feel limited because of lack of emotional availability, or levels of exhaustion, or capacity for brain use, or if I have used most / all of my spoons on children, the caring of them, the cooking for them, the finding-of-babysitters-and-researching-school-holiday-activities-and-etcetera for them. The triple checking that the homework was finished and there is not yet another completely random and unnecessary themed dress-up day happening tomorrow.
These are not excuses, it’s simply that, when I am at capacity because of those things, then my choice is to use any extra time to rest, to disconnect, to disassociate, or to do something that doesn’t require my brain as much that could be more therapeutic. Something to refuel me for beginning all the aforementioned bullshit again in an hour, in a day, in 7 minutes. Like a wall mural in my office that no one but me will see. Like painting a pair of sneakers because I got a weird idea one day and wanted to try it. Like cross-stitch. Like falling in love-slash-lust with a fairy shadow daddy in some far away pretend land where all men are hotly muscled, towering over everyone at 6-foot-5, yet also sensitive despite a tough looking, scowl-y exterior, plus also feminists who know how to expertly give orgasms based on the nuanced fluttering of your eyelashes. [No one does orgasms like a book boyfriend, ok? It’s just science and it’s also because book boyfriends are 98% written by women].
Insane orgasm digression. Was I talking about working? Maybe I should quit everything and read romance for a living and just really get in touch with myself. Was that a pun? Let’s move on.
WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS. I dunno. I’m not super happy with how things are going for me, from a professional or even personal perspective. I feel very satisfied with my health, my hair, my boys, my muffin princess pup, my family, my house. I just taught myself how to apply false eyelashes and that was extremely satisfying.
I feel supremely unsatisfied as a person: in my profession, in my hobbies maybe? In how I spend my time, in how I seem to be allowing myself to be stuck in this mindset of stuck-ness. I am stuck feeling stuck. I am addicted to the whole “ugh these kids amiright” of it all. For every time I make an excuse for myself, or allow myself to nap when I could in theory use that hour for something else, for every other person who is in a situation like mine, struggling to accomplish things they want to accomplish [even because of other not unimportant accomplishments e.g. raising children], there is another person out there making things happen in the same or similar circumstances. There are women struggling with anxiety JUST like me, with children JUST as loud as mine, who are waking up at 5am to write before their kids wake up. Or using toddler naptime to tackle creative work. Or being really good at doing the whole Sunday meal planning and prep thing.
I see and hear evidence of this all the time, and I want to show compassion to myself - and I do, often - but that voice is STILL there. In the background. Young Sara, who was “talks too much in class,” and “needs to learn to focus,” and maybe my favorite: “rise to her potential,” is tired and just wants to sit down. I don’t want to rise to anything and I certainly don’t want to rise before the sun, ever. But surely this doesn’t mean that I cannot be a fulfilled human who accomplishes things she wants to accomplish? [notice I’m not using the word success or succeed]
SURELY. SHORELY. SHIRLEY.
I’ve decided I want to make this a game, kind of, or something. I want to attempt to systematically attack some of the projects and ideas I’ve had written down for maybe literal years, relating to business and creative endeavors. I will maybe a) experiment with different wake-up times, lol we’ll see, b) use toddler nap time a few times a week, c) reassure myself that sleep is no longer a scarcity and I no longer need to be trapped by or scared of not sleeping, d) try doing different sorts of tasks when the boys are around instead of saving it all for alone time.
These things all sound insanely obvious, like what if I just don’t sleep as much, I’ll probably get more done, no duh. But the sleep deprived resentful new mom, the girl who wants to do what she wants and not what she’s told to do, needs permission to make different choices. It can still be what I want to do, it can just be…different, better, more satisfying, more fun.
Right?
I spoke recently to my therapist about the amount of time I spend in bed. Sleeping too much and/or not being able to sleep are symptoms of anxiety and depression. But how much of the pull to my bed is me hiding and taking the easy way out, and how much of it is “legit,” if you will. This is a thing I will have to figure out. When is it REST that I NEED and when is it AVOIDANCE that I need to WORK THROUGH. When is it defiance against 14-year-old me’s POTENTIAL and when is it A TRUE STATEMENT OF MY DESIRES.
So like, I’ma find out. Hopefully.
Meantime, my office is BANGIN’ and I am obsessed with it.
kloveyoubyeeeeeeee
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