Ya’ll…I’m stinking tired. Life is just straight up tiring. There’s no other word to describe it. This old bag of bones is just flat out
Grade A, 100% TIRED.
Even before I had kids, I was tired. I used to be a practicing divorce attorney listening to incessant whining from my obnoxiously needy clients and working 50+ hours per week at a firm in Downtown Phoenix. Which I had to commute at least 45 minutes one way every morning and every night in rush hour traffic on the FREAKING 101. All after I waking up at 5am to run or workout with my friend only to make it home in just enough time to help make dinner, kiss my husband, pass out, and then do it all over again the next day. And the next, and the next, and the next.
Then I stopped practicing law, and I got an amazing job at my church doing finances and accounting. Guess what? I was still tired because I wanted to learn everything at my new job and fix all the things that were broken when I got there, and then I invariably took on extra volunteer opportunities at KidzKamp and Women’s Retreat and the young marrieds group and we led a Bible Study and on and on and on.
Then I had a baby. Obviously, I was STILL. TIRED. This time from midnight feedings and making sure he had lots of tummy time, pumping, music class, sleep training, baby led weaning and ALL THE LAUNDRY (oh my gosh…so. much. launrdy!). Oh, and I’m still working full-time, mind you. Now he’s starting to get mobile and it doesn’t look like life is going to slow down anytime soon.
Then, my husband has the unmitigated gall to walk into the house one day and say, “Man, I’m tired!” I get a call from my stay-at-home mom friend and she says, “Whoo! I’m beat!” Then I see on Facebook, my old law school classmate who isn’t even married and doesn’t even have kids, post, “TGIF! I don’t even know if I’ll make it through happy hour, I can’t keep my eyes open!”
Mamas.
Madres.
Mothers.
Can you even imagine what I wanted to say to all these people?! I wanted to look them all square in the face, and plain as day, just retort…
“I’m sorry, homie. Me, too.”
Moms, I think we all are guilty sometimes of feeling like we are the most tired people on the planet, and that no one else has a right to complain about it. Or we fight with each other about which type of mom gets the coveted title–SAHMs, working moms, moms of multiples, moms with young kids or older kids. Ladies, no one has a monopoly on exhaustion. We’re all allowed to be tired once in a while or even all the time if that’s the season you’re in. Moms. Dads. Working moms. SAHMs. WAHMs. Working dads. Childless folks. Single peeps. Empty nesters.
Just because someone’s brand of tired wasn’t caused by the same thing as yours doesn’t mean that their struggle is not real. I get so sad when I see those memes of someone LOL-ing with the caption “When my friends without kids/husband/etc. say they are tired…” It’s really not fair and it kind of makes us as moms look like jerks. #nobueno
Think about the game Monopoly.
Someone always ends up sad at the end because they landed on Park Place with a hotel and had to sell all their purple and light blue properties to try to salvage their place in the game. (See my husband below. #VICTORYWASMINE) Monopoly is all about hoarding as many territories as you can as fast as you can and then exploiting the poor people who, through no skill or fault of their own, innocently tread on your properties while simply going around the board as the rules of that universe dictate.
Mamas, let’s not do this same hurtful, soul-crushing thing to one another. Let’s not do this to our husbands or our SAHM friends or our working mom friends or even our single or childless friends. Don’t hoard all the reasons to be exhausted and then pounce like a smug little top hat on the poor defenseless candlestick that happened to cross your path that day. There’s a reason the SEC has Anti-Trust laws and aggressively prosecutes companies who are trying to create a monopoly. It’s because monopolies are bad; they aren’t good for anyone.
So, throw up your Katniss three-finger salute to all the sleepy bears out there, humans that are moms and humans that are not moms, because we’re all in this crazy, exhausting, beautiful life together.
