10/07/2021
A little dose of reality: this is me the evening we got home from our lovely (but very exhausting) holiday. I was just done and needed a 5 minute sit down and mindless scroll to switch off
While we were away, and I had a chat about how hard we’ve found the first year with 2 tiny humans and I showed him something I wrote when Thea was about 5 months old. He told me to post it here as he was feeling the same way and it would have helped him to read it at that point:
‘I’m tired
Well, I mean, obviously. I have 2 tiny children who both need a lot of attention in different ways but I’m tired. Like, really tired. Tired in a way I’ve never felt before
I’m tired of making decisions, I’m tired of the constant cycle of washing up, doing laundry, making food for a toddler who has a 75% chance he’ll throw it on the floor. I’m tired of trying to be a good mum, a good wife, a good daughter, a good friend and all the other hats I wear
I’m tired of living through this pandemic that has robbed me of a maternity leave. It’s robbed my kids of time and cuddles with their extended families. It’s robbed me of the ability to create space within my relationship as we’re living on top of each other and have been reduced to housemates
I’m tired of there never being an off switch. Every room I walk into there’s always something that needs doing and by sitting down I’m consciously making a decision not to do something that needs doing. That decision comes with guilt
I make so many decisions each day for the kids that by the time they’re in bed I have no decision-making energy left for my own life and relationship. I’m running on empty but also on automatic. Anything that unnecessarily uses energy has to go, like emotions, laughter, being silly. They all take up time and energy that could/should be spent on folding laundry, washing up, cooking’
Talk to me about how you felt in your first few years of motherhood!
