I see you.
Juggling work, play, drop offs, pick ups, classes, appointments, cleaning your house (shhh… I won’t tell the toilet hasn’t been scrubbed in… a while)…
I see you. I feel you. I AM you!
Parenting is tough gig.
It’s messy and brilliant. Demanding and wonderful. Fulfilling and draining. It’s SO much all at once. As parents we get to {have to} put on a lot of different hats.
Doctor, teacher, friend, disciplinarian, chauffeur, chef, maid…
{I could go on, but there are just SO many roles we play}
Those hats sometimes stack up real nicely. We float around feeling all the superhuman vibes and gettin’ stuff like we own the place. We accomplish goals and check off the to-do list like a Boss.
And sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes it’s like the flippin’ Leaning Tower of Pisa right up top of your head. Sometimes we drop one or two, or seven. Sometimes we never even get one to sit straight. And that’s okay.
When all those hats get heavy and your head starts to throb and wobble and you feel like your neck juuuuust might break, you just have to stop. You have to take them off one at a time and acknowledge the weight of them. You have to admire the strength that you’ve shown in carrying all that weight. Then, then you have to take care of yourself.
//
There are seasons in my life where I feel like “self care” is something that exists only in fairy tales. The thought of an uninterrupted shower is a far off fantasy. The dream of silent pee is a vision only in the land of unicorns and rainbow rivers.
There are also seasons in my life where I know that if I don’t make self care a priority, everything, and I mean EV.REE.THANG. will fall apart. Not because I’m some almighty being that holds it all together, but because I might literally go all HULK SMASH on it and nothing will survive.
As a general rule, we parents tend to put “me” time on the back burner. We make sure everyone has full bellies, clean ears, picked up rooms, fresh blankies…
Then we collapse into our own beds hungry, unshowered on sheets that {if we’re being real} haven’t been changed in 72 years with “organized” piles of laundry {that might be clean} on the floor.
{If you tell me that it’s just me, I’ll cry for a year, and then tell you you’re a liar!}
You MUST make you a priority. You MUST fill that cup that you so freely and WILLINGLY pour from.
If we don’t make that happen, we dry up. An empty cup can water nothing. A ship with windless sails cannot move.
Make YOU time a priority. It doesn’t have to be today, or tomorrow even. But it does have to be soon.
I see you. And I admire you. I applaud you. And I trek on alongside you.
Now, let’s go get ice cream 😉
