The last week/10 days has been, for want of a better set of words - a complete fuck fight.
Having just settled back into routine - school, works, sports, sanity ... a snap 5 day statewide lock down and you can take any semblance of sanity I had and drop punt it right out the door.
I have nursed my sanity through a fair bit. I felt I had a reasonable handle on it - but lockdown, birthdays, seemingly endless changes to plans, not enough sleep, too much explaining, too many hormones (in children, possibly me also...) too much emotion, too many reminders, too much of everything and you can take that semblance of ‘no, it’s all good...’ and shove it into a cracking panic attack in the middle of KMart 300km from home while attending a sporting event for a child, with 3 kids in tow ...
There has been good.
There has been attempts at routine.
There has been laughs.
There has been early nights to bed.
There has been bits in the middle where everything ran smoothly.
There has been neighbourly cricket matches.
There has been actual fireworks (fireworks are so cool, even as an adult).
And there has been that bit where my parents arrived for a very much needed visit. For 5 days. For an extended period of time where I could take the foot off the pressure valve and enjoy adult company in my house consistently. And enjoy the tangible support of having them there.
And less than 48hrs into it, have it ripped out from underneath me as they raced back over a state border to avoid a lock down, and necessary isolation if they stayed any longer.
So I was left alone to navigate remote schooling, working from home, restricted movement and mask wearing all again.
Thankfully (?) two of the three days were the weekend. So we had one day of nothing. Not even cooking. I bought food for every meal.
Annoyingly, it turns out the cooking part of meals isn’t what is the difficult thing.
It’s the whole ‘please just try it before you say you don’t like it’... ‘why didn’t you go to the toilet before sat down?’... ‘does it really matter if they are having another piece of bread? Do you want more? have some! No? Then stop commenting!!’... ‘can we just sit at the table and enjoy a meal together??...’ stuff that makes it hard.
We had a birthday in the house. It was as good as a lockdown birthday gets. There was some appalling sibling behaviour. I will not listen to anyone who tells me that what went on wasn’t explicitly a deliberate attempt at attention seeking on someone else’s day.
I tried to make a chore chart up for everyone to be involved in. Of course I shouldn’t have to pay $1 to get someone to put the bin out or unstack the dishwasher, but neither should I have to repeat myself a berzillion times and end up turning into a screaming banshee to try and get it done. I’m at a point now where I don’t care - I just want to not have to do it all on my own!
That has had mixed results. Created arguments. Got jobs done. Got the expensive jobs done multiple times (I’ve had to install a ‘1 a week’ rule for the $10/pop jobs)...
I’ve had emotional children. Children who have beamed having seen psychologists and getting their heads sorted. Children who have cried just about all the ‘stuff’ upsetting them in their head. Children who have snuggled into bed and told me they love me. Children who have yelled at me. Children who have created me a Brawl Stars profile called #1Mum. Children who have begged me to have more ‘family time’ all together. Children have looked me square in the eye and said I can’t help them because I am not Daddy and he isn’t here anymore. Ever.
I have kicked goals at work. I have kicked own goals at work. I have achieved much in one day. I have achieved nothing more than sitting on online meeting after online meeting for 5hrs in one day.
I have cried into the best roast chicken I have ever cooked because that day it was so utterly overwhelmed and all I wanted to do was run away somewhere to someone else’s house ... but it was 6.30pm - right on dinner time for every single person I could think of. And I felt so defeated I knew I would be demanding time away from their own families to help me. And they have all helped me so much. And this is my lot to try and work out, isn’t it? And after 2 years am I really STILL turning up on people’s
doorsteps in tears? And I could just take our dinner there and feed everyone because I still haven’t mastered the art of portion size and could have fed 18 people with a meal I cooked for 5. But I stayed at home. And sobbed into my chicken. Put everyone to bed. And then cried down the phone to someone later that night.
Besides that, in the last week I have cried in my bed at night when the child beside me asleep because I am so lost with how to deal with and consistently handle the task at hand. I have been insanely rude at people trying to help me by using words like: For Fuck’s sake!! No one can fuck fix it!! Only to haven’t them quietly say: Sorry, I’m just trying to help. And me remember that people are still trying - they really are - to help, even though I am so.bloody.sick.and.tired of the sound of my own voice about the daily struggle.
I haven’t walked. Swum. Walked the dogs. Seen people for coffee to debrief with them like I feel would have been helpful. I have told myself to do these things every day. Every day I have not done them.
I have basically been like this all week:
But I have fed the kids. Got them educated. Worked. Transported them everywhere they needed to be. Cheered them on where I could.
All of which brought me to the meltdown.
At a rowing regatta 3 hours away.
It’s the last we will see the rowing child compete this interrupted season. So we all packed up and went to cheer. She is carrying a knee injury. We went for moral support as much as we went hoping they would row well.
I visited, in person, an amazing eclectic shop I follow on social media and could have stayed there for hours if the kids hadn’t dragged me out.
But that’s when I found the shop next door.
A men’s shop. With so many things in it that Pete would have loved. That I knew he would buy. That I knew I could buy for him. That I knew he would laugh at. An entire shop that I just knew he would bloody love. It was a weird feeling deep in the pit of my stomach and heart knowing that. I felt sick. I felt teary. I looked at so many things and had to check myself because there is no man to buy the things for or enjoy with.
I soaked the shop and it’s things in. Fighting tears. And spent money. But at the same told the kids I was struggling with the things in the shop.
We left and I was ok-ish.
We watched a rowing head and I was ok-er.
But in Kmart about 2 hours later I was not ok.
The kids knew it was not ok.
They did their best.
At one point I sent them into a shop for something mundane and sat in the car, quietly checking off the symptoms for heart attack and pulmonary embolisms, and at the same time telling myself it was not that. And reiterating to my already non-logical brain the overwhelming reality that I was alone, hours from home, responsible for 3 kids... with another needing me to turn up and cheer her in 1/2 an hour, and then I needed to drive them all safely home.
I can’t even tell you how I fixed it. I don’t know. Time?
Cold water?
Tears?
Deep breaths / hyperventilatin?
Beautiful little hands holding my arm saying: we are ok, Mummy. You just get you ok.
Siblings yelling at one another about who was meant to be in the front seat.
The desperate desire to be ok because of my reality.
Some stupid ingrained thing that I know if I let the kids down that would plague me even worse than what I was feeling at that point in time.
The kids STILL sniping at each other of who didn’t carry their bag bean bag beans properly!
And so - I did as I always seem to do.
I completely overcompensated.
I screamed like a banshee on the river bank at kids in a rowing boat.
I stopped and took the kids out for dinner on the way home.
I played music really really loudly and sang with them all the way home in a seemingly effective idea that trying to remember power ballad lyrics from the 80s and 90s would both distract my brain from itself and impress the children with my ability to remember so many some lyrics (and not just at my clear inability to hold a tune and yet continue to sing at the top of my lungs...)
Today, I could get a job taking phone calls for dodgy 1900 phone lines of the 80s and 90s with my larynx’s clear inability to endure car singing for hours like it used to (a husky voice in a COVID-sensitive state also makes people give you a second glance, too).
Today I offloaded my ridiculous last week/fortnight onto more people’s listening ears, which helped.
Today I raised my testosterone levels by buying garden power tools at Bunnings and getting the lawn sorted, which helped.
Today I chopped up a hose with my new whipper snipper, which did not help.
Today I made a decent dinner and we sat as a family and talked about our week ahead and played a trivia game, which helped.
And now, I’ll deal with this...
Because irrespective of all that stuff above...
There is ALWAYS the bloody dishes to do and a kitchen to clear... regardless of how much I seem offer as a cash reward...
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