Welcome to 2018 I am exhausted already

by Veronica Foale on February 20, 2018

in Navelgazing

I need to bake. This is what my life is lately, I work and I bake, and I work some more. Soap, cookies, soap again. Muscle rub, cake, biscuits, lip balm. Around and around and I am never still, not even when my body isn’t moving, because my head spins spins spins.

Stop.

I don’t know if it’s my mental health playing up, or my physical health, but I am discombomulated. Stretched too thin and feeling all of this energy leaking out out out and nothing coming in to recharge me. I am stressed and tired, and my bones slide around under my skin, refusing to stay in place. My eyes prickle with tears and exhaustion and probably hormones, but there are so many feeeeelings and who cares why they’re happening, I just wish they’d stop escaping from my eyes.

My children are back at school and remarkably, this increases my work load because now there’s no excuse to stop and sit. To watch a movie with them, popcorn and two hours with my brain turned off.

I never would have believed it, five years ago, mother to very small people, school makes more work, not less. You’d think children out of the house for eight hours a day would be peaceful, but there’s no peace. Just a spin spin spin in circles, when your body can’t keep up with the to-do list and you feel the weight of waiting for them pressing down on you.

I need to bake, because the cake squares in the freezer are running low, and we’ve no sweet biscuits left, and I put my foot down. No more muesli bars to languish in a lunchbox with one bite removed. No more bought treats. I am done with the waste and the whining and you can make your own bloody lunchboxes from now on (except you, yes I know you’re too little and no, I will still make your sandwiches ever day even when you don’t eat them oh my god) .

BREATHE. And bake.

I worked on Sunday, at a private event. Stand there, smile, make people feel good. I enjoy it, I do, but it’s so much work. There’s no time for breathing, in between hurried bites of sandwich and making sure you’re looking socially acceptable and pleasant for every customer ever. They just appear in front of you, and my mouth is full of sandwich crusts and coughing and drink and breeeeathe.

“Hi, how are you today? Good! Are you having a good day? Enjoying Tasmania? Is this your first time here?”

I love this, trust me, I really do. Being the point of contact, smiling, engaging with people. I like people. They’re interesting, and I like talking to them.

But two days later I’m still playing recovery. There’s nothing of me left. Spread too thin and washed too well. The car is still full of market boxes needing unpacking and the job is beyond me. I need a shower, and I’m waiting on the builder, and we need to fill out Official Forms and submit them back to the surveyor, start dates, end dates, builder numbers, do we need to apply to be owner builders, or is our favourite local contractor registered for us? No one knows until I can ask him.  Building makes me feel stupid, like I’m three steps behind everyone, and they’re all speaking a language I don’t understand, my breasts getting in the way of my brain. Apparently.

I am counting down the hours. If I start baking now, I have four hours until my children are home, getting off the bus in a swirl of complaints and discussions, X said Y and Z needs X and K wants Z and oh my god, child, breathe. With me now, breathe. Unpack lunchboxes, dirty clothes in to be washed, clean clothes ready for doing all of this over again tomorrow. Have a snack, not too much, I’m cooking dinner, seriously, stop eating marshmallows, god, what is for dinner even.

Spin.

Spin.

Spin.

It will be okay. I will recover, and smile, and ask people if this is their first time in Tasmania. I will liase with customers, and make beautiful pretty things, and I will breathe breathe breath again.

But right now, I am tired. Bone tired. Emotional tired.

Too much of everyone else and not enough of me. I need things to just be easy for a time.

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