The Great Tired

I was in the car on a Thursday night, driving my two kids to soccer practices. At a stop light, my daughter said from the back seat, "Momma, I have a question for you, and I need you to tell me the truth." 

I braced myself. I thought this was going to be one of those serious questions about life, the universe, and everything. Maybe about how babies get in the belly or whether Santa is real. 

Instead, she threw me for a completely different loop. 

"You know how you don't do hard things all day long like moving heavy stuff or running all day or something? So...why are you so tired all the time?"

Oh, child. Let me tell you why. 

I explained that there is a difference between physical tiredness - from playing soccer or moving heavy things all day - and something called the mental load. Like it or not, women - especially mothers - still carry most of the mental load, and it is exhausting.

It's five hundred small decisions every day that affect a thousand other things that affect all four of us and sometimes the dog, too. It's knowing everybody's schedules and preferences and mood and anticipating every need, every day of every year.

It's never-ending and all-consuming.  

Help.

I told her just that day, before rushing off to an appointment, I had worked with her daddy to make a grocery list, but before we could make a list we had to decide what meals to eat this week. Not an hour prior to being in the car with the two kids I had made three different dinners - one for each of us, because there are no meals that all of us will eat - and I had put all of them on the table an hour early, after school pick up and helping with homework, so we could get dressed, pack waters and soccer balls and rush out to practice.

In order to make next week's meals I needed to see what activities each of us had going on, from doctor's appointments I had made to school activities I had written down to my own band rehearsal for an upcoming concert.

Saturday dinner had to be something easy and quick because I was going to be busy all day Saturday. First I had to go to the post office to mail back pants that had been tried on but didn't fit, then run by the pharmacy to pick up a prescription that had run out because I didn't refill it in time, then I had a writing class east of downtown that required a half-hour drive each way.

After that I had to go to one shopping center to return more pants that didn't fit and, while I was there, run across the street to go to a separate store for something I would otherwise have to order online, and then go to a different shopping center to pick up summer clothes I had ordered for them the previous week.

And then, once I got home, I had to wash, dry, and fold four loads of the kids' laundry which I would normally do on Sunday but Sunday was Mother's Day and I wanted to take the day off from chores.

But before all of that, I had to cancel one work-from-home meeting and push back a meeting with my book-writing mentor so I could attend the Mother's Day celebration at school on Friday, and none of that includes the things I needed to get done for my paid job which still needed doing despite my busyness.

Oh, and also I'm trying to write a book in my ample spare time.

"And that's just two days," I said. "Do you understand now why I'm so tired?"

When I looked in the rear-view mirror, both kids were crying.

"I didn't know being a parent was so hard," my 12-year-old son said through tears. "I don't think I can do it!"

"I didn't know it was so hard either!," my daughter sobbed. "I'm sorry you have to do so much, Momma!"

My response may have been a little sharp, but I didn't intend to make them feel bad. Then I added to my already full schedule an unexpected and unwelcome visitor - Mom Guilt.

I reassured them that their father and I had gone to a lot of trouble to have them, that they were very much wanted and deeply loved.

I said being a mother was harder than I thought it would be, and I have no mother to ask whether I'm doing any of this the right way, but everything I do for them is because I love them and I want them to be happy, healthy people. 

By then we had arrived at the soccer fields for two consecutive, hour-long practices while it was, of course, raining and cold and neither child had dressed themselves in the layers I had told them to wear after I checked temperature, "real feel," and forecast.

I thought the conversation would be quickly forgotten. 

But both children referenced the talk in cards they gave me for Mother's Day, again apologizing for making me so tired.

Now I have an indelible reminder in large-print handwriting of that time I was a little too honest.  

I hope it's the honesty, and not the upset, that will stick with them as they grow into adults with busy schedules and ever-increasing mental loads.

I hope they will have a more accurate expectation of adulthood and parenthood than I did, and they will be better prepared for that inevitable moment when they will look at their personal calendars and think, "How did I get here? What is happening?"

Because I think that a lot in this great, tired season of life.