"Bob and Sue": Week at a glance

In my efforts to understand where all my time and energy are going (and why on earth I feel so drained when I'm trying so hard to find balance), I decided I should put down on paper all of my regularly scheduled activities.

The activities in blue are especially important for "recharging my batteries". Or they have been in the past. It feels lately like they're not working as well. Maybe there's more stress overall (I'm now a mom, a part-time teacher, and an enormous portion of my kids' social lives)? Or Covid has forced me to change how I perform those activities and therefore decreased their potency (chatting on the phone is NOT the same as face-to-face). Probably both: higher demand on energy and a less effective recharge mechanism. Good sleep is a major factor in my mental health, too, but I'm not sure how much of it counts as "recharge" time in these calculations.

Last night, I lost it. After a long day, James needed to login to a math website for school and the teacher had given terrible instructions on how to access it. Absolutely terrible. That was the last straw. I didn't want to do ANY of this anymore...momming, schooling, Covid. I went to my room, curled up into the fetal position on my stripped mattress (laundry day) and cried into the ball of clean sheets. A few minutes later, I heard James skipping down the hall towards me. I heard Bobby tell him to leave me alone for a while. Then I heard careful, quiet steps up to my bedroom door, the doorknob turn a little squeak, and the door open just a few inches. I didn't move. I didn't speak. James half-whispered, "Mom?" I didn't hide the emotional quiver in my voice, "Yes?" He caught his breath half a second before backing out mumbling, "I'm...just...going...to go now...". Whatever he told everyone else, it prompted Matthew to come to my door carefully, crack it open, and ask, "Mom?"

"Yes?"

"I love you." And he slipped away closing the door again.

I was in despair. I would never get to do anything I wanted to do ever again...friends, farm, guitar, cycling, being absolutely and completely alone in my house...I would be trapped in this infinite Blursday of need and coercion and negotiation and bickering and guilt and confusion and constant drain forever. And ever. I cried for some time until strangely I realized I didn't feel that way anymore. I caught a second wind, somehow, and felt fine the rest of the evening. Fine enough to email the teacher and get the info I needed before bedtime. James' school day went a lot more smoothly today.

One crappy-hard and unpredictable day at a time, my friends.

Anyway, back to my time chart :) It's funny to see that food and housework add up to 2 part-time jobs just on their own!

The daily breakdown is a little sobering: 34% sleeping, 34% food/housework/tethered to kids, 32% for absolutely everything else on this entire planet.

I spend 15% of my time on recharging activities. Is it enough? Not lately. Will more time spent on those activities make everything better? I don't know. That is the constant debate raging in my mind.

The chart misses some very important factors to my week. For example, all the housework and food prep and errand-running (and even blogging, at times) is accompanied by the noise of four kids being kids. Matthew, especially, will follow me around with his constant chatter and conversation. It's lovely on good days, okay on regular days, and draining on hard days. Robert and James pretty much hen-peck each other all day, despite our measures to teach them civility and patience. The chart also misses the additional helps I get every week from Bobby and Erin...Erin has a couple kids over to her house two afternoons a week and Bobby goes into work late two mornings a week so I can work at Sola Gratia. Then Erin has ALL the kids over to her house for a few hours every Saturday, and an overnight sleepover once a month. Seriously. These are gifts of time from Bobby and Erin that I can't repay. Ever. What would my life be like without those gifts? I count on them. So, I feel like I have NO room to complain about how hard these days are, and yet, they're still hard.

I'll finish this blog post with a few pictures of our recent activities (recharging and otherwise) ;)