Mindfulness

The Stress is Real. Give Yourself Some Grace.

It could be worse.

Be grateful for what you have.

So many others are facing much more dire situations.

This is what I tell myself periodically throughout the day as I referee another squabble between the kids. Between me and the kids. Between me and the cats (okay, only the asshole cat who seems hellbent on destroying every last shred of my sanity).

But still. I find myself suddenly sighing big sighs with an all too familiar weight on my chest. My heart and mind race, leaving my heavy body tired. The lump that sits in my throat reminds me to stay silent, or else risk tipping my hand that I’m really not okay right now.

I’ve been here before. Twice.

Postpartum depression left me in a cloud for months after both of my kids were born, and the second time around it took an SSRI to help me find my feet again. It wasn’t fun, but I came through it, and now I’m finding myself wandering through familiar territory. Hello, depression. Couldn’t you at least have hung a banner?

But back to the stress part of this equation. Prior to the pandemic, it was hard to think of something more stressful that becoming a parent. Talk about life changing! You’re semi-literally ripped open and handed something that will rely on you to some degree, both physically and emotionally, for the rest of your life. Fully literally, nothing is ever the same. It’s stressful as hell, even if it’s also positive.

The pandemic is not positive, but it also brings with it an incredible amount of stress. Financial, social, emotional, physical – it’s hard to think of one part of our lives this pandemic doesn’t apply stress to. It’s the ultimate stress test.

And if you’re an empath like me, it’s a very confusing time because on top of feeling stressed, you also feel guilty for feeling what you’re feeling because so many others have it so much worse. So you feel more stressed.

I am thankful my kids are home and safe, yet they still annoy me beyond all reason at some point (or many points) throughout the day. And so I feel guilty.

I am thankful for my WFH job, yet it’s mentally exhausting trying to fit it into an outrageously chaotic schedule, so it slips through the cracks each day. And so I feel more guilty.

I am thankful for this time with my family where we get to do something we would otherwise never do (this is like, A LOT of time together), but I crave personal space, my friends, and time to myself. And so I feel extra guilty.

But emotionally I’ve been here.

Oddly enough, I find myself thankful for those agonizing postpartum months. What I’ve learned from that time is that stress and guilt are real feelings. Your mind may understand that what’s causing your stress is different from what’s causing someone else’s stress, but your body reacts the same. And once your body gets rolling, it takes more than a personal scolding to stop the cycle.

Today, instead of feeling upset with myself for failing to be grateful, patient, and unflappable, I will give myself grace. I’m hella flappable right now and that’s okay. I know things could be worse, but I also know that the stress I’m feeling and processing is real.

With time, my body will catch up with my mind, and until then, I’ll go easy on myself. The stress/guilt/stress cycle is only a phase. This too, shall pass.

In Defense of Beautiful Pictures

Without a backstory, the pictures seem to be happy enough.

In one, our little girl lays stretched out in the summer grass, a freshly picked flower in her dirt-stained hand, an easy smile spreading across her lips. In the other, our grinning baby snuggles on a soft blanket, his dark eyes shining while his little hands fidget, fingers knotted together.

They are beautiful pictures captured at very precise moments of what was otherwise a difficult and abbreviated vacation where both kids were sick, and I spent nearly the entire time ping-ponging between whoever needed me more. When recalling the last five days, the adjective insufferable comes to mind, as does the vivid memory of my son throwing up inside my bra.

But my photo stream would beg to differ.

In it, a photo of my daughter at dusk, reaching through the dark leaves of a shadowy tree toward a glowing bulb on a string of lights. In another, she and I laugh while the wind whips our hair around wildly, a vibrant blue sky behind us. In perhaps the most ironic of all, a shot of my sleeping son, who, for all intents and purposes, didn’t sleep while we were gone (and continues to not sleep as I attempt to write this).

To someone who didn’t know better, these pictures make it seem like a pretty idyllic vacation, though I can assure you it was not. Now this isn’t to say it was all terrible. Far from either extreme end of the spectrum, the last five days were actually just pretty standard when living with two small children who are the human equivalent of heatseeking missiles for germs. It was busy and chaotic, and bookended by visits to separate pediatricians. We lost things, and found things, and got our fair share of new bumps and bruises. There were tantrums and tears, just as there was laughter and play.

It was just the latter of which I chose to capture and share with the world.

My reasoning behind this isn’t to broadcast my perfect life, with my well-behaved and always lovely children (sarcasm font). Far from attempting to fake anything, the purpose behind taking (and sharing) beautiful pictures is borne out of a desire to be more positive, and focus on remembering (and acknowledging) all of the tiny little moments that could otherwise be buried in bra barf and massive, back-arching, floor-thumping, red-faced screaming banshee-type tantrums.

Of course, for the sake of being “real”, as if these moments didn’t really exist, I could post a grainy photo of me laying on top of my daughter, pinning all of her flailing limbs to her bed, while I hum to her and beg (and plead, and pray) for her to stop moving and pleasefortheloveofallthatisholygotosleep. I could caption a blurry action shot of me bouncing my baby for the second straight hour in an 86 degree room “I have butt sweat and my armpits smell like the inside of a moccasin worn to Woodstock…and every day since!”

But I don’t. Because we all know how hard it is. And sometimes it’s really nice to remember how it can be easy too, even if it’s just for a second.

All photos belong to HMDHM, except the cover photo, which I got online a long time ago, but can’t find the original source so if you know it, give a shout-out.

Yo-gatta Try This: On Yoga and Letting Go Of Lasagna

Yoga. For some, this word conjures up images of peaceful relaxation: Deep, intentional breaths taken and released into the vastness of the universe, with the grace of a white dove soaring through a crimson sky. For others, the word triggers an image of something more along the lines of hot, synchronized, expensive group exercise for skinny college girls, and lean-muscled men. And for others, like myself, when someone says yoga, I think of yogurt. Frozen yogurt, more specifically, pumped into a paper cup by a machine that always makes it look like a surprisingly appetizing little turd, and covered in six dollars worth of cookie crumbs and chocolate chips, (more…)