Brain Dump

Sometimes I open up my blog without any intentions of what I am going to write about. I just let my fingers and my heart lead the way to what I want to say. Nothing I say on my blog is edited in any form. It’s really what I feel in the moment when I am recalling a recent memory with my family. I don’t typically go back and edit typos, misspellings, etc because this is what bled from my fingers when I wanted to speak.

I guess I felt like this white space needed some of my thoughts as of recently.

Tired. Disassociated. Unheard.

I feel all of those things. This pandemic is far more draining than we could have ever imagined back in March. I constantly feel like I’m “on the clock.” The pressure of time is always present. I feel so frustrated when no one understands the amount of work I put into each and every day. It’s isolating sometimes because everything is done for someone else. I read a quote recently that really hit home with how I am feeling:

People pleasing is self-abandonment.

I am so wrapped up in trying to do everything without failing. I am failing. I have failed. Sometimes my husband makes me feel like I should be able to handle everything because of “who” I am. Tonight, I looked at myself in the mirror and felt like I didn’t really recognize the person in it. I know it’s me, but it felt different…maybe outer body. I don’t know what that means, but I didn’t like it.

I want to be understood that this is not easy and it shouldn’t be easy. I work so hard every single day. Not just M - F. I do a lot of it by myself. I rarely complain…about anything. I think that goes back to how I was raised. It is what it is is one of the most popular things I say. Why complain about something that you really can’t change. Sometimes we focus on why something is happened TO us, but really, maybe it’s happening FOR us. Maybe all these overwhelming feelings are starting to boil over because life is like WHOA, it’s time for you to see what you’re trying to OUTWORK.

My most pressing fears during this pandemic is how it is affecting others, mainly my daughter. A big ole sasquatch-sized middle finger to the next person that tries to tell me “kids are resilient” because ya’ll aren’t in my house. You don’t see how this ridiculous isolation is hurting my child. I’m no mama bear…it’s not in my bones to get upset about a life experience that we are meant to learn, but this pandemic is beyond that threshold now.

This life is almost barbaric. What the fuck are we really doing here anymore?

I made the lonely decision to take Waylin back to daycare in the new year. This decision was not well-loved by others and I feel like I am the only one supporting myself. And this decision did not come easy. Trust me, I thought of all the cons of every choice I could make. It’s been 9+ months of putting our norm on pause because of this indecisiveness. Really what it all comes down to is what’s best for Waylin. That’s mama bear shit. Clueless W’s to everyone that doesn’t support me when I am doing something that is best for her little heart.

I will never fault a mom who makes decisions for her children based on their success, their health, and their safety.

I get so stuck between the feelings of: fuck you for not understanding me and fuck it, you just don’t understand. * sigh *

It’s tiring to have to validate my decision too. The choice for her to go back to daycare is not for me. I would always prefer to be with my daughter. Remember family used to think I was weird for wanting to spend my anniversaries and birthday with my daughter too? I don’t call anyone and ask them to take my kid unless there’s a good reason for it. I always want to be with her. it’s selfish to keep doing what we’ve been doing though. I am not able to spend time with her while I work from home that is meaningful in anyway.

The view from here is one of unsupervised activities 8 hours a day, minimal play time together, short lunches to get back to work to overcome all the times I got interrupted while trying to meet hourly deadlines, unlimited screen time, hushing while I’m on a conference call, absolutely no education going on in my home because I literally cannot add one more thing to my day. So many moms have reached out when I’ve expressed some of this embarrassing details about my home environment and how “self play” is so good for her. Yeah, it is, but…not for 8+ hours a day.

For some reason, my family recently likes to highlight and point to Waylin being “stubborn” and it’s increasingly upsetting me every time I hear those words spill out of their mouths. If you knew what this girl goes through every single day…and not to mention she’s three years old dealing with big feelings…. she has grown this way because of all this isolation. I don’t fault her for having strong opinions over things…I don’t.

I have tears almost every night when I think of her and what this is doing. Even as I write this, tears rolls and I can’t breathe. The day I decided to take her back to daycare, I felt like I finally became conscious of this “brick” that was sitting on my chest that I was ignoring for so long. It’s like when you only realize you were clenching your jaw until the pressure has released. I felt so much relief when I got the courage to make the unpopular decision to put her back in daycare.

I am on holiday from work for a couple weeks and I hope to make every single day full of the happiest moments. That means full attention, outdoor exploration time, and a lot of chasing games. ❤

Thanks for reading through this brain dump. I feel so much better getting all of that noise out of my heart.