970 minutes.
That is the amount of minutes scheduled weekly for appointments (I include church, church activities, and extra curriculars in that). Then add roughly 580 minutes of drive time to all of those appointments. I am not including doctor appointments that might pop up. This is a normal week. These appointments happen EVERY SINGLE WEEK.
1,550 minutes or almost 26 hours are spoken for every week.
Now I am adding in an exercise class 3 days a week. Which is another 180 minutes plus 60 minutes drive time. (but this is something I really need. My "me" time to help me on my journey to be healthier.)
Almost 30 hours of each week is planned. Then to think of the time spent grocery shopping, making meals, helping kids with homework, cleaning the house... Can I even begin to estimate those minutes/hours????
*sigh*
I am EXHAUSTED!!
My health problems cause me great fatigue rather easily. So when I am busy like this, I get extremely burnt out. This results in me having a couple days or more where I just can't get up and do as much. My body just shuts down and I can barely get out of bed. Due to that, I have become more of a homebody than I ever was before. These past couple days where I didn't have anything too pressing to do, I didn't fight the fatigue. I just let my body rest and catch up. (Can we say Netflix binge?!?!)
It is hard enough to keep up with all the duties of being a mom. Then to add health problems just really makes it rough. As a mom, though, I feel the need to put on a front. To pretend I have it all together and just fake that I can keep up. Put a smile on my face and act like I can handle it all. Because there are so many other moms out there who have even more to do and they don't complain! But I think the reality is that the other moms probably feel just as frazzled as I do. We all try so hard to put this fake "put together mom" front, "super mom" front, that we over do it.
I don't mean to say dads don't have it hard. My husband is plenty busy between work, school, and being a dad. But there is something so incredibly draining as a mom to be driving kids around (especially when you have little ones you have to get in and out of the car seats over and over, and take kids multiple potty breaks when out and about), dealing with the kids 24 hours a day, the fighting, the constant redirecting the kids to do what you have asked them to do, riding the emotional roller coaster of each different kids temperament and emotions... Mom's rarely get a break from the kids, especially a mental break. Where dads tend to get to go focus on work and have a nice, quiet commute. (Same goes for stay at home dads. They know just how stay at home moms feel!)
I love my life as a mom. (most of the time...) This is what I always dreamed of having. But at this point in time, due to my health, it is just hard to do it all. At this point in time, FATIGUE is part of who I am. I have some good days, but more bad days than good. But I am done with feeling guilty for this being who I am. This may not be how I always am (I truly hope to find an alternative medicine to help my health conditions so I don't have to live with this the rest of my life), but right now this is who I am and that is not something that I need to feel guilty about.
So on my good days I will do everything I am able to do. On my bad days, I will do what little bit I can manage to do and just be grateful to be alive and for having a wonderful, understanding husband. I was once told by a friend that everything has its season. This is the season I am in and I will find joy in it the best I can. That doesn't mean that I will give up on trying to improve, but it means I won't be so hard on myself for not being able to do certain things at this time.
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