Drowning in Motherhood 2020

I would like to caveat, that no I will not be ending my life anytime soon. Some days as a parent I just cannot keep up with the demands of being a mother of three small dragons (boys), of being a wife and then meticulously making sure I have time for me. This post was borne from a day when I felt like I just could not keep up.

Drowning in life! An oxymoronic phrase? Not just my life, but the life of my kids, my husband’s life and even the darn cat. Scrabbling to hit all the bases, these lives throw at me and always missing the mark. Treading water and slipping under, allowing the water to slowly seep in, fill my lungs and pull me deeper into the depths of a sweet, dark, silent oblivion.
A world of gentle nothingness. No laundry to be done, no “healthy” dinners to be made, no cleaning to get to, or beds to be changed, no first job or second job to create time for or not fail at, yet excel at and then off to mop and care for my sickened child. Pay bills, change the car oil, activities to sign for, pay for, get to. ALWAYS running late, never on time. With the last-minute shoe searches of three young boys, hanging like shackles on our ankles dragging us back, never on time.
Activities! The dictator of my day, ruling my life with its iron fist. Where each activity cannot comprehend that your kid may do another (god forbid your loyalties are split). Or you have more than 2 kids, each an individual and each wanting to do something uniquely theirs. We have homework, school trips, lunches to be made (uhum they must be healthy or be classed as the shit mum with the unhealthy kid). Snacks to remember, water bottles to be filled, sort clothes into piles that need to be scrubbed and bodies to be bathed. Because, boys seem to be perpetually dirty or covered in a bodily fluid of some sort.
Then there is ME. I must remember me! I want to run and run daily. Running is what keeps me calm and happy. But, sadly this is just another weight tied to my ankles dragging me further into the silt of not enough hours, dark dreams and no air to be found. With a sickly glow of light filtering through the watery murkiness of my fears, that ……
I am not enough.
I will never be enough.
I am failing.
I can never be the person that the life I have created needs me to be.
I am lying in the depths of failure and wishing I could breathe.

Signed – Motherhood 2020