The dark clouds of depression started looming over me this past week. The other day, I sat on the couch with my morning coffee in my lap, because I was too tired to finish it. I was literally nodding off while holding my coffee in my lap and just sitting there for thirty minutes. And, just to be clear, this was not because I haven’t gotten enough sleep. In fact, I have been getting too much sleep this past week. I’ve been passing out on the couch at eight or nine and then waking up at 6:30 to get my kids off to school. So, there was no reason for me to be nodding off mid-morning. I was in a bad place.
I was feeling the same way this morning. I listlessly packed my kids’ soccer cleats and shin guards, water bottles, and snacks, and sat through their soccer games with just the tiniest hint of passable enthusiasm. Languid does not even begin to describe how I was feeling. I couldn’t be there a hundred percent, and because I’m a good mom, I was hating myself for being like that. I was watching other moms congratulating their children on their really great attempts at making a goal, and I was halfheartedly doing the same for my own children, but I knew that my accolades didn’t compare to those other moms. I was indifferent at best.
Sometimes it’s hard to be there 100%. It is hard to be the Pinterest perfect mom. And quite frankly, I have been that mom, and it’s fucking exhausting as hell. Sometimes it takes so much out of you that you have nothing more to give. But the problem is: your kids and spouse never stop needing or wanting stuff from you!
So, I leave you with this piece of advice: don’t beat yourself up for being less than perfect. Don’t make yourself feel bad about not being there a hundred percent for your children sometimes. Nobody can be a hundred percent for someone else a hundred percent of the time. If you are always a hundred percent super mom for your kids, eventually your well’s gonna run dry, and you’ll have nothing left for them or anyone else, especially yourself. It’s okay, probably even better, if you apply half of your energy reserves on yourself and then split the other half on your kids and the other important people in your life.
You need to repeat the flight attendants’ safety message mantra to yourself: put your oxygen mask on before assisting others.
If you can’t breathe, then you can’t possibly help anyone else. So, I’m saying this to my fellow moms: it is okay to put yourself first. Do not forget about yourself in your journey as mother and wife…because you are central to that journey and just as important as the other people in your life.