I feel like I have to start with a disclaimer. Most days are not like today. Most days the cracks barely even show and when they do, I can paper them over with will and endurance. Most days, I feel mostly deep joy and gratitude for this life that I have built and these people that I have built it with. I have the clarity I need to know that this is just a moment in time.

Today, the cracks feel huge and gaping, as though no amount of can-do-good-cheer plaster can fill them. I feel raw and utterly unprepared for the world I find myself in. The constant demands, both reasonable and unreasonable, leave me feeling detached from my own worth, my own personhood. I feel reduced, utilitarian. I clean only to find the same mess miraculously reappear behind me. I cook, and before the last pan hits the sink, I’m deluged with demands for more or less or different food. I can’t remember how to create something for myself, how to carve out a slice of the world that belongs only to me. I find myself giving up on a thought midway through, knowing I won’t be able to finish it without being interrupted to tie a knot, kiss a booboo, referee a fight. Even my dreamscape isn’t my own. Small bodies find their way into my bed and I dream of screaming, reaching out to save my children from some impending doom we cannot escape, a fall from a great hight, a giant beast, an illness that takes a turn, and I wake to find a tiny foot across my face or small hand wedged in between my breasts.

I screamed today, not words, just a primal growl from deep in my belly. I had asked and asked and asked and been asked and been asked and been asked and answered and answered and picked up the same tiny clear blue lego in a sea of legos on an unending loop, and replaced the couch cushions, and wiped up the spill, and I just needed a minute, I said. Could everybody just give me a minute, to think, to connect with my breath, to King Solomon the baby, to get in touch with my body, to remember that smart thing that smart parents do when things are hard, and to remember that this not about me or how I feel or what I need, that it is about them and that’s just the reality right now and I SCREAMED.

WHEN WILL IT BE ABOUT ME?

My throat still hurts.

I went in the back yard and stretched out, face down on the warm grass. I connected with my breath. I felt my heartbeat in my chest. I got in touch with my body. I let myself cry. I watered my tiny plants in the hopes of a beautiful summer harvest, tomatoes, cucumbers, sugar snap peas.

I am not cut out for this. I am faking it. Maybe you are too?

There are so many bright sides, so many spots, even long stretches, of unbridled joy, but that is not what today is for. Maybe come back tomorrow?

Still not sure how today ends.