Finding Me

It is 8:49 on a Sunday morning. By all accounts I should still be in my ducky pajama pants. But I am not. I am up and showered. Already, I am so overwhelmed by the list of tasks running through my head that I am literally crying as I dry my hair. Which is completely ridiculous. Phil said he would watch the kids but instead he fell asleep in their bed and they came running into our room. In the past two hours I have already done a load of laundry, some dishes, and explained adoption (thank you Disney channel and Jessie for that important but also difficult to explain episode). All I want to do is write out my feelings but there is a Barbie, a screw driver and one Spiderman walkie talkie on top of my laptop. They are symbolic gifts from each member of my family not so subtly reminding me of who and what comes first.

I know this feeling. I’ve felt it before. It comes whenever I get so overwhelmed by the tasks of my family and of life in general that I forget the loving them part. The how to love me part. That I forget that if I don’t start to love me a bit more, I am going to drown. I mean I literally won’t. It’s not as if we are living within a giant pool. But this is how I imagine it feels. You are sinking underneath slippery and moving parts. There is nothing to hold onto. You can’t quite catch your breath. Things like water which normally feels light, suddenly starts to feel heavy.

My husband gets the kids dressed in matching Jets football gear. This annoys me on many levels; partly because I have been trying to get Ruby to wear that Jets shirt for a full year but only when Daddy the magician suggests it, does she finally want to put it on. She wears it proudly. Dylan and Phil are in matching football attire and they all bound into the room and ask if I will take their photo together. It feels like they are all in on some joke that I am not. They seem so happy, so carefree. So freaking adorable. It bothers me because I want to stay mad at them.

Why do they not have the same ticker of stuff running in their heads? I am looking at them in the midst of this adorable family moment and there is a part of me that is there and another part of me that just has a running list of stuff that has to get done. And I hate myself for that. I feel like a split screen TV. I want to watch the main program, but I can’t take my eyes off that stupid scrolling feed at the bottom of the screen telling me really important things like Khloe Kardashian files for divorce, and Miley twerks with a Christmas Tree. I am having trouble, once again, focusing and prioritizing.

Instead, my own personal ticker reads something like this: I have to finish the kids’ room and start washing the baby stuff and where are their back packs? Did I never unpack them from Friday? Did we get the mail yesterday? Is there still snow gear all over the house? Why do I wash constantly but the laundry hamper is never empty? Can I get the dishes done before my husband’s 87 year old grandmother shows up and starts washing them? How long before she asks me if I’ve hired a cleaning lady? And what about my writing? I need to prioritize that, and my marriage and the kids’ physicals…

And it never stops. Water, sinking, drowning. Phil packs the kids up and takes them for a walk to go get breakfast. I contemplate staying home by myself. There is so much I will accomplish. Which is mostly true. But that overwhelmed feeling will stay with me as long as I stay anywhere where there are constant reminders of my scrolling ticker of stuff. So I hastily pack my laptop and grab my keys to drive 2 minutes away to the local coffee shop.

On the way down the street I pass Phil and the kids walking to breakfast. Yet again, they look so frustratingly adorable together. I slow and roll my window down. In my head I can hear myself saying something like, “Do you want a ride?” or “Can I join you for breakfast?” because this is what I do. I get overwhelmed with life and them and then I get really crabby and take it out on them which is completely unfair. Then when they offer me space to breathe I reject it and jump back into the pool. Which makes absolutely no fucking sense. But it is a rare warm Sunday morning with my family. Why wouldn’t I want to have breakfast with them?

In a most unusual break of clarity I catch myself. I know if I stay with them I will keep sinking and the rest of the day they will only get the muddied and wrung out version of me. So for the sake of all of us, I just wave and keep driving. I am not sure if this is the right decision. I leave my adorable family in the rearview mirror. I drive to go find me. To pull me out and separate me from the list of crap and chores and to dos. Just me.

It is 9:41. I found me. She was at Starbucks with a decaf latte, an ice water, a bacon sandwich and her own thoughts. I am finding it much easier to breathe and I do so slowly, deliberately. I spend a few minutes with my own thoughts. It is the breakfast of champions; or at least of overwhelmed mothers who forget how important it is to champion themselves once in a great while.

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