It’s too much. Too much noise. Too much mess. Too many errands. Too many arguments. Too many lunches to make, too many drop offs and back-to-school nights. And it’s all on too little sleep, too little thanks, and too little money.
You. Just. Can’t. Handle. It.
Every parent on the planet feels that way.
If one more person touches me, if someone says my name one more time, if someone asks me for one more thing, if something else goes wrong, if there is one more night like this…I will die.
But you know that’s not true…because you felt that way last year and the year before and the year before…and here you are. Still buggering on. Still going. Still doing—whether you give yourself credit or not—a hell of a job.
“I can handle/Way more than I can handle,” Bon Iver sings. And it’s true. We all can. You have so much more in you than it feels like you do. And how do you know this? Because, again, the load you’re handling today dwarfs the load you could have carried at other times in your life. In fact, the things you are handling calmly today would have freaked you out just a few years ago.
Athletes learn that the body is a notorious liar. So do parents. You have so much more capacity. Your inner citadel is strong.
You got this.