I'm Not Ready

Monday band rehearsals. Thursday boxing and soccer practice. Friday band concerts. Saturday soccer games. First communion, lunch out of town, preschool graduation, a community safety class. 

In the next two months, my family will return to a pre-pandemic schedule. We'll go back to youth extracurriculars and events, adult hobbies, and a few safe social engagements. My husband's work schedule will revert to full-time regular madness: two morning shifts followed by two evening shifts capped off with one middle-of-the-day shift. 

I am not ready.

Normal means busy.

Over the last 14 months the world came to a screeching halt, then only crawled along as absolutely necessary. Amid this slower pace and decreased expectations, I felt like I could breathe. I had precious downtime, something I haven't enjoyed much of since birthing children. Our calendars were blissfully light, filled in only with vital in-person functions. In terms of busyness, life was so much easier. 

The holidays were equal parts empty and relaxed without school functions, family gatherings, and friendly parties. Yet I enjoyed them more. With more hours to myself, I finally found time to write, read books from the library, and complete long-planned home improvement projects. To do things I had been back-burnering for ages because everyone else's events took priority and left me too tired for much else. As an introvert and a creator, I welcomed the refreshing solitude and freedom.

We didn't get to celebrate my 40th birthday with a trip, but I read more than 15 books set in America and Europe. There was no family vacation last summer, no sunsets painting beaches pink. But I painted four rooms in our home (including an overzealous foray into stenciling) and completed three detailed woodworking projects. I've sorely missed seeing my friends, but I've seen 10 essays published. 

Since my husband was home a great deal more, suddenly my load of responsibilities lightened immensely. Now that he was home most evenings, he cajoled the kids into tidying up every night. He did much of the school drop off and pick up, and acted as a co-referee and primary snack gofer while the kids were home. I only had one bath time and bedtime routine to manage, instead of two. And we enjoyed more unstructured family time. Strolling the neighborhood after dinner, visiting new playgrounds, and passing summer afternoons at the neighborhood pool where the kids figured out how to dive in via backflip, much to my dismay. 

The pandemic was, and still is, excruciating. I carry heavy sadness that it was not an easy time for far too many people, including some friends who suffered these months. But the time it gave me was a gift.

Now that my adult family is fully vaccinated, along with almost a third of my state's population, we are beginning to emerge from the house and revisit our pursuits. Organizations are resuming activities that we missed last year as interest and public safety increase. And life is cautiously returning to normal.   

It may be "normal," but normal was still hard. Normal had me stuck in a cycle of overwhelm, anger, and depression, repeat ad infinitum. 

Normal means weeks packed with my part-time job, keeping a preschooler entertained, and endless housework plus managing homework, cooking, and three nights of solo bath and bed routines. Normal means weekends rushing to complete errands and see friends and family, only to feel on Sunday night like there was hardly a weekend at all. Normal is falling asleep when I open a book, and telling myself over and over that things will slow down after next week.

Sitting precariously on top of all that normal is the additional stuff that threatens to break me. It's such a challenge to balance enriching my kids and losing my mind. Even just one activity -- soccer for each child -- is a disruptive stressor. Practices are scheduled for different hours on a school night when my husband works. From school pick-up to homework and dinner, to outfitting each kid and loading up gear, to putting both children to bed late and starting laundry so the clothes are clean for games in 36 hours, those nights are grueling for me. 

Sometimes even my own personal hobbies, like community concert band and maintaining my writing, feel like additional responsibilities too heavy to carry in the normal. But if I don't have anything for myself, if I never get out of the house or stir my creative juices, I begin to feel like merely a shell of a person wearing a mom nametag. I need more than that to be whole.     

I recognize all the benefits that sports, arts, and socializing bring. But I still feel overwhelmed by it all, angry at my to-do list and at my own distress, and exhausted. I'm snippy all day, I fall asleep on the couch before 9:30 p.m. most nights. During particularly bad weeks, I cry under the weight of this beautiful normal life. And then I spend the next couple of days in a hole, teary eyed, struggling to slog through my basic responsibilities, much less anything additional. 

Surely I'm not the only one who is dreading a return to this normal. Certainly it's not just me who is drowning in the combination of parenting, homemaking, working, and trying to maintain my personal identity. Am I doing life wrong, or are we as a society doing it wrong? 

I don't know. But ready or not, here we go again.