Mornings are always stressful in my household, as I’m sure they are for many families. The rush of getting ready, packing school bags, scrambling to put together sack lunches, making sure devices are charged — let’s face it, I’m in danger of being late to work almost every day.
But today, I was, like, pretty damn late — late enough to get the hairy eyeball from the school secretary. Because my morning wasn’t just a hot mess today. Today it was a certifiable clusterbatch.
I’m one of those people who struggles to function when something heavy weighs on my mind. Needless to say, I haven’t been what you’d call super functional since, well, March. Nothing like a pandemic to throw my already ADHD brain off track. Today, though, I wasn’t just a hot mess, I was a spicy disaster.
I got distracted halfway through doing my hair to start the coffee pot I’d forgotten to turn on earlier, and it dried funny. So I fired up my straightener to try to fix it, then forgot about it until my husband came to ask me if I was trying to burn the house down.
I also got way behind while I was getting dressed. We always have the TV on in the bedroom while we’re getting ready, but instead of the local news, my husband had put on a 24-hour news channel. Already, the talking heads were screaming about the election: polling places,
delegates, and electoral votes, oh my! I sat on the bed with my foot half in and half out of a sock for like 15 minutes with my eyes glued to animated state maps glowing in blue and red.
Later, my husband and I raced to our cars, our 5-year-old daughter in tow.
We quickly barked out our schedules to each other
“I have a telemedicine appointment at six, so I need you to stop and get milk and cat litter!”
“But you work in town — can’t you just go after work?” I shot back as I strapped my daughter into her car seat.
“No, because I don’t know how long the lines to vote will be!” he called back, and then hopped into the driver’s seat of his car.
“OK, honey.” I turned back to my daughter, saying, “I guess we’re gonna go get milk after school.”
“Where’s dad going? To vote?”
My daughter knows all about voting. We take her to the polls with us every time. This year, though, we opted not to due to COVID-19.
“I get to vote, too, right?”
“Sorry, honey, you’re not old enough.”
“OK, well, I’ll vote for you and you vote for me, right, Mama? Right?”
She wouldn’t stop until I squeaked out a “Right…”
There was something about her innocent optimism, her lack of real understanding, that just got me in that moment, and I teared up. The panicked voice in my head chanted, I can’t do this, I can’t handle this, I can’t have one more thing, I can’t do this, I can’t handle this…
As we pulled into the school parking lot, I tried to take some deep breaths and nail down exactly what I was feeling.
I can’t handle what, exactly?
What is this straw that’s breaking my sanity’s back?
It’s uncertainty. More uncertainty. More, after so many months of it. What’s going to happen? Who’s going to be elected? How will the country react? How will the world react? Will there be civil unrest? Should I go to the grocery store tonight and stock up?
Add that to the plethora of questions constantly circling around any mother’s brain in these times
Will my kid ever catch up on all the things she missed during quarantine? Is this going to be a lasting trauma for her? What happens if I have to quarantine? What if she has to quarantine? What if school goes virtual, but I still have to go to work? What if I get sick? What if my family gets my parents or grandparents sick and someone actually dies? Am I being too paranoid about COVID-19 or not paranoid enough?
When people talk about their “plates,” it’s a metaphor for what problems or tasks are in front of them, waiting to be solved or in some way taken care of.
Right now, my plate is overflowing
I feel like I’ve walked down a mile-long cafeteria line, with lunch ladies piling ladle after ladle of unappetizing food onto my school lunch tray until it’s so heavy I don’t think I can lift it.
Election. COVID-19. Home renovation. Online schooling. Sick cat. Back pain. Sex life. Dinner. Kid’s homework. My work. Empty bank account. And on and on it goes.
And I’m supposed to sit down and eat all of this? To consume all of these problems and tasks until the plate is “cleared”?
No. Because I’m not going to let every scoop of crappy food land on my plate. I’m not going to eat what I don’t have room for. Some things I can’t avoid — the home renovations, my relationship with my spouse, getting dinner on the table — these are all items that need my attention.
I voted today. I did my civic duty and, for now, that’s it. I can’t control what the rest of the country is going to do. I’m tossing what’s left on my tray in the trash.
Uncertainty is everywhere
It’s drowning us. But one thing I can be certain about is that I can’t let things I have no control over drive me to distraction. Easier said than done, but here’s to trying.
