I’m tired.
Full sentence. Full stop.
That could be this entire post. But I’ll dive into a bit more as to why.
I was running full steam ahead for many months. I was go-go-go. I was getting lots done. I was focusing on my physical health and my mental health. I was doing my job. I was taking care of the kids. I was keeping up with the house. It was all very routine and I was feeling good.
Meanwhile, my daughter has been catching everything at daycare. She had Covid (for the THIRD time now), then two subsequent colds after that. (I purposely try not to think about how the kids are constantly all over each other and in each other’s faces. And my second is particularly fond of her personal space, but I suspect kids are blatantly ignoring her requests for space, and thus coughing directly into her mouth somehow.)
Anyway, I had avoided the first two viruses successfully. The third one came around, and that virus found my weak spot, wherever it was, and entered with the command to destroy me.
Usually I’m the one taking care of the sick ones in the house.
But this time, I was struck down. I got hit with a very bad case of laryngitis. I hate colds to begin with, but when they take out my voice? Gah. The worst!
The girls had their dress rehearsal and dance recital on the weekend I came down with laryngitis. I clapped and tried to cheer as best I could for them that weekend (which was also Father’s day!) And then come Monday, I nearly could not get out of bed and had to take a sick day.
I have never really been very good at taking sick days, even before kids. I grew up with the mentality that I must be present and “on” and doing things and getting things done every single day, or I’d fall behind. This type of thinking wasn’t put upon me by anyone else. It’s just the way I’ve always been. I distinctly remember not wanting to be taken out of kindergarten for a day and having a fit when my mom said I had to miss school.
Taking breaks and resting when needed is always something I don’t like doing for myself. Someone has to look at me and say, “You need to stop. You need to rest. You need to take a break.”
As a mom, though, it’s actually very difficult to find uninterrupted rest to recuperate from an illness.
The little things I do constantly around the house to keep things neat and in order started to build up last week. I was getting questions like, “Where are my pajamas?” (They were clean, in a laundry bin in the living room…waiting to be folded…guess who folds all the clothes…but yes did manage to wash the clothes even while sick…) The area in front of the side door where bags get dropped was building up. The last day of school happened during my illness, and the backpack and the stuff that comes home with it sat there for several days.
Time doesn’t stop when you’re sick, and the world keeps turning around you. Sometimes I think that moms get hit harder when they get sick because most of the time they’re like “psh, a cold? I don’t have time for that nonsense”
I’m telling you, though, this virus found the weak entry point in my body and was under some programmed command to just destroy me.
I’m definitely better now, but still tired, still run down.
There were other things happening to also make the recovery harder:
House being invaded with carpenter ants. Some years are worse than others, and this year those ants were also under some sort of devil command to enter and take over my house. We have been doing everything that the internet and exterminators say we can do — and they’re still getting inside.
School ending, and camp not starting yet. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Working parents have the short end of the stick. We really do. I’m also not a teacher, so when school ends for my kids, work does not end for me. My oldest has been home with me, bored out of her mind because she’s not used to unstructured time, and I’m on calls all day. I feel guilty. I feel tired. I feel frustrated.
A heat wave, and thus the returning feelings of climate doom. I have been anxious about global warming since I was a teenager. But now what I was worried about back then is kind of coming true, which is horrible for people with generalized anxiety. If your fears come true, it makes the anxiety worse. Also, let’s mix a heat wave, school ending, me being sick, me still working, and a carpenter ant infestation together into one pot and see if I come out sane. (Hint: I don’t.) Climate anxiety will continue to plague me…probably forever. I not only worry about how it will affect my mental health going forward, but how it will affect my kids once they’re old enough to comprehend how bad this shit truly is.
Political turmoil and a 24-hour news cycle. I have now started limiting my time on my phone. Or trying to. I have to because when I do scroll, it feels awful. The news is awful. We were not built to read and consume news like this. Not only that, but my feed isn’t about staying connected to people I know and love, it’s about selling me stuff. And it’s also about working me up. The accounts on these platforms that we see are getting paid! They’re getting paid for you to view their photos and videos. Just keep that in mind, always, when consuming content. Even the ones you ultimately choose to follow, or if you’ve been following them for years — you will now notice they are monetized. What they initially started to do for free, they have turned into their job. So the content you’re consuming, no matter if it’s something you ultimately agree with or not, is being created to make money. And if it’s being created to make money, it’s got some sort of spin on it, and it’s getting crafted for specific audiences, and if you’re on the list, you’re being targeted in some way. The messaging is always targeted.
Sometimes I come on here and want to be happy, but usually when I come to write, it’s basically a form of therapy for me. So…it’s not usually about the happiest things going on with me.
I’m also not getting paid for this and my target audience are the few people who have followed me since the dawn of my journaling days, and they’re here for the juice and the raw feelings.
There is one more day of it being in the 90s….for maybe a week-ish. We get some relief. So there is hope on the horizon.
I have vacations coming up, too, so that hope will expand!
My goal is to have my family virus-free for our vacations. It’s a tall ask, I know. But maybe once my body has fought off this one, my antibodies will be like “get tf out of here” to anything else that tries to get in!
I hope you’re all more healthy and less tired than me.
And beating the heat and staying away from the terrible news and that you don’t have carpenter ants being bullies.
Until next time!
<3
Megan
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