The Poor Mom Revolution

Perfection! Something I’ve been striving for since I was a little girl and realizing now how unattainable it really is. Maybe I’m a few decades too late in coming to the realization. As a mom I strive to remember all the things, utilize my 24 hours to the best that I can, and give everyone as much love and energy as possible even when I have none. Motherhood is one of those things where you can feel like you are on cloud nine one moment and instantly so useless the next. The feeling of putting all your time and energy into making something easier for everybody just to realize it wasn’t enough and failed. This inner dialogue of needing things to be perfect, ruins everything.

Last Monday I felt so good. I had the whole week set on the calendar. My gym days were scheduled in, I got first dibs on parent-teacher conferences for the evening time slots, my first Galentine’s event was set for Friday night and all was right with the world. Excitingly enough, my son won his basketball game last week putting him in the final four tournament for his age group. To my surprise, his next game was scheduled for the exact time of our parent-teacher conferences. I am of course devastated because I’m not able to be in both places as one of us still has to go to the conferences and my son is upset that this is the first game that I’ll be missing.

The most frustrating part of it all is that I did all the things right and everything was going great. My kid’s biggest complaint is that on the millions of times they have a 2 or 3-hour delay, I typically go to work normal time. They love when I take them to the bus stop which is why I changed my hours to be able to do so for regular days. I much prefer to save the limited number of days that I have for trips, long weekends and our holiday break. Despite all that, based on our lack of plowing in our development, I took a 2-hour delay that morning to spend more time with them and bring them to the bus stop. They were absolutely thrilled, but of course missing the tournament game cancels out everything else for me and him.

Now don’t get me wrong, as a previous teacher I know how important conferences are as it sometimes is the only way you’ll get to talk to teachers face-to-face. With my kids being in either the Special Education or Title 1 program, I’m organizing conferences with three additional teachers as well the grade level teams. These programs also pride themselves in having 100% of parents coming to conferences as it’s vital to see progress and build communication. I guess the most frustrating part was that three out of four tournament teams are from our town and they chose conference night. Very disappointing.

I had my day or two of sulking and now I’ve officially moved past it. It’s a small moment in the grand scheme of everything and although it’s irritating, it is out of my control at this point. As a sports mom on rec and club teams, I know about all the last minute schedule changes and how hard it is to collaborate with multiple teams and coaches. You’d just think that the school calendar would have made its way into the discussion at some point, oh well. Conferences went well and we got an excellent report on both the kids and the progress is incredible. My son won his tournament game and is now in the final two! So thankfully I didn’t miss his last game. There are always silver linings no matter how annoying or terrible the situation seems at the time.

I tend to be an optimistic, smiley person and even when I’m not… I force it anyway. This is what I’ve always done and it either helps push me out of a mood when I’m in one or it somehow puts others in a good mood around me. If I’m being completely honest, wearing a mask, even if it’s a smile, can be exhausting on a day or week when it’s a struggle. But I’ve had this happy go lucky persona for so long that if I wake up and need to be in a crap mood, nobody knows how to handle it. Sometimes it’s comforting for those to ask what they can do to help or to tell me just to let go of what’s bothering me… and other times I can’t help but think I’m allowed to simply be in a funk with no explanation needed. Everyone’s allowed to have ups and downs, be irritated and grumpy and we’re allowed to show it even if it appears out of character. I’ve also entered a stage where I don’t always even know what’s wrong and trying to explain that to somebody who doesn’t have random anxiety and depression doesn’t understand it one bit. One of the worst feelings is when you’re miserable or unhappy and there’s no reason to be. You can rationalize and tell yourself how incredible things are, you’ve been through worse, but It doesn’t change anything. You can’t simply calm down, snap out of it or get over it… It simply needs to run its terrible, annoying course until you’re back to being you.

Now whenever I’m in a mood I wear it on my face. It’s not all the time, but it takes over when I am. I don’t hide it anymore and I don’t even know if I could put it back inside its cage if I wanted to. Sometimes life is sunshine and rainbows and other times, I’m over it. At times there are a million things going on in my head and other times there isn’t anything living rent free in my brain. If I’m in a funk, I get asked constantly if I’m okay or if anything’s wrong and my response a million times over is, “I’m fine, just tired.”

What I mean by that is…

I’m tired of having to change how I feel to make others feel better.

I’m tired of having my emotions change based on the room and who I’m with. I’m tired of constantly running through an ongoing calendar and to do lists in my head.

I’m tired of overthinking and over-analyzing every conversation that I’ve had and second-guessing how I worded things.

I’m tired of giving everything I have to my kids and still feeling like I’ve fallen short.

I’m tired of working my butt off and doing everything right, just to be in the same rat race we’ve always been a part of.

I’m tired of constantly working harder to simply be in the same place I started.

I’m tired of constantly raising the bar for myself to a point where I’ll never actually achieve self satisfaction.

I’m tired of not only managing my own impossible emotions, but being there for my kids to feel theirs as well without reacting.

I’m tired of listening to other people’s opinions when I don’t ask for them, and still somehow caring about what they think.

I’m tired of having to battle every day to keep my priorities and boundaries in check.

Sometimes. I’m. Allowed. to. Simply. be. Tired.