To say that I’m having an existential crisis would probably be an understatement. To pretend like it hasn’t been consuming me for at least a year would be equally false.
This morning was boiling down to: taking a bike ride on the river trail to clear my head and think, or driving 45 miles to buy raffle tickets for a Queen of Hearts raffle at a bar and grille that is down to 6 cards with a jackpot of $192,000. They do their drawings on Wednesdays.
My thought stream Wednesday morning: I seriously checked Zillow last night for houses in the low 100s in preparation for winning. Hahahaha! I feel like I know which number the Queen is hiding in. I know the odds are slim that one of my tickets would be chosen. But there is a one in seven chance the number is right. Ultimately, I knew it would be a waste of time and money to go to the place to buy tickets. I also suspected that it would be crowded at the open, and I may have ended up stuck there for a while. I knew I shouldn’t go. But, I also felt like you just never know, and why not take a chance?? I will likely talk myself out of it because quiet reflection time is probably necessary, especially after this morning. Also, time is an issue. I have to be back in town by like 2 pm (to appear on a local live show promoting the Quad Cities Beer book I co-wrote), and the place opens at 11 am. I had meant to go on Monday or Tuesday, but it slipped my mind with so many other things going on. If I get there at 11 and there is a huge line, I would probably just drive back home. So, I shouldn’t waste the time or effort. Maybe the card won’t surface tonight, and the jackpot will rise, and I can go buy tickets at a more convenient time.
*The bike ride and working on this piece won out. I started writing this piece just after getting home from taking the kids to school this morning. If the number I was going to choose wins the drawing tonight, I’m going to be so pissed!
So many times, pieces take me so much longer to write than I expect. This was all mostly drafted Wednesday morning and afternoon (after my bike ride). I’m feeling super lazy and defeated and don’t want to go through and change all the timeline stuff. I can’t tell you how many times I start a piece, go back and change and update the timeline information, and then go back and change it all up again after another day or two…and I think that has been so much my downfall in publishing anything. I need to just start NOT writing with “today” or “this morning.” Until then, just pretend I published this Wednesday. And for an additional update: The Queen of Hearts was NOT drawn Wednesday night - so, I am definitely going to make that drive before next Wednesday! The jackpot is up to $240,345.
This morning was not a pretty one. It started out almost like every other morning, except I was feeling drained and hit snooze until 6:15 am. Most mornings, my alarm goes off at 5:30 am, and I snooze until maybe 5:40-5:50 am. I get up, visit each kid’s room (so, this is x4), and tell them, “Good morning, it’s time to get up,” and head outside with the dogs and smoke. I come back in and do another round of visiting children to wake them up. My youngest sleeps in the living room on a couch (he and the middle son share a room with a bunk bed, but do NOT do well at night together, and the youngest prefers sleeping in the living room). I start the coffee, go to the bathroom, and do my third round of waking the kids. I get coffee, do another round, let the dogs out again (they just like to go outside every time I do), and relax for a few minutes by either scrolling social media, playing the daily Woodoku puzzle, and/or reading the latest newsletters on Substack that I subscribe to.
Today’s newsletter by
Lenz hit very timely. She’s celebrating her third year of publishing her newsletter . She talks about prioritizing her writing and being consistent. (To be clear - I am nowhere within her league, and am not comparing myself to her). These things have been on my mind a lot lately. I want to be more consistent with my publishing here, but I haven’t ever prioritized it or my writing. Just this week, as I was working on an “update” piece of sorts (because I have started two larger pieces that will take a while, and I got nervous when I realized I hadn’t published anything since June!!), I was thinking that I need to pick a day and publish something weekly on that day. I need to give myself a deadline because if I don’t, it will get pushed to the side and left for that ever-elusive tomorrow.Also, I’ve been weighing heavy on the fact that I’m 53, and I feel like I still don’t have any shit together. I’ve been teaching part-time since 2015, and always feel on the brink of getting fired. (I miss deadlines a lot because I always have so many things going on or that come up, or a lot of times, it has to do with my mental health and things that are overwhelming me at any given time {which is everything always}). I never imagined that I would be in the position I’m in. I also never understood how almost impossible it would be to be able to work a career job with children. I’ve been so entirely in my head about this whole issue and ideas about motherhood and systemic misogyny, which were exacerbated while reading an interview with Amanda Montei by
. One of the pieces I’m working on has a lot to do with these issues.At one point this morning, at the point where I had just completely lost it, I absolutely yelled, “This is NOT what I imagined my life would be.” Yes, that was pretty dramatic. And sadly, not the worst thing I said this morning.
Because all of these things and issues have been floating around in my head. I do know that I am not an utter failure, but these negative thoughts are so pervasive. And I feel at such a loss.
During the fifth, sixth, or seventh round of trying to get kids out of bed is when I usually start getting upset. I start raising my voice. I start telling them what time it is and that I NEED them to get up and get dressed NOW.
My mother has told me that I need to get a squirt bottle and start squirting them in the face with water to get them out of bed every morning. I can’t bring myself to do that though. Especially since two of them have sensory issues and freak out when a drop of water touches their face. I don’t want to intentionally create a major shit-show in the morning.
I’ve tried so many methods. So many (loud alarm clocks, consequences, rewards, music, a megaphone, all-out bribery, etc.). Leave a comment with your best method of waking kids up in the morning for school! My favorite method I used was loudly playing, singing, and dancing to “Holla Back Girl” (because one morning I said to myself this shit is bananas). My oldest claimed it traumatized him.
This morning, at 7 am, not one kid was up.
At 7:15, when I started losing it, three of them finally got out of bed. One got dressed right away except for his shoes. My daughter needed me to go downstairs and get a bra from the laundry room because she forgot to grab one last night.
We should be leaving the house at 7:15 am. That should get them there in time to eat breakfast before school starts. The drive takes us about 12 minutes.
At 7:30, when the last one was still in bed, I was about in tears telling him that he absolutely HAD TO GET UP AND DRESSED IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE WE WERE LATE!!
It doesn’t help that getting them to school late is triggering for me. I really just pinpointed that this morning. I mean, it has been all along, but never put it in those terms. It is triggering.
When I was in the midst of a custody battle, one of the reasons my lawyer didn’t want to take the case into a court room in front of a judge was because I get my kids to school late all of the time. Never mind, at that point (and this point still really), their father had NEVER even taken them to school.
It destroys me every.single.morning that we are late. This is one of the reasons that I had to settle for 50% shared custody.
There have been so many mornings that I have lectured them the whole way to school, begged them to tell me how I can get them to school on time, asked them how to get them to wake up on time in the morning, told them I could get in serious trouble for getting them there late…this morning I asked them how it is they get up and walk to school and get there on time when they are at their dad’s. (Yes, I realize that I shouldn’t be asking this, but I was so completely undone and upset this morning that it just flew out of my mouth without my brain intervening. One child mumbled “fear.” And that is not one of the methods I will use to make my kids do things).
At 7:45 am (the high school first period starts at 7:40, and the junior high starts at 7:50), I had two kids in the car, and had left the youngest upstairs to check on and make sure the oldest was in fact out of bed and getting dressed because I was done and I was losing it.
Five minutes later, I heard the youngest banging on the oldest’s door… I went upstairs, made sure he was getting dressed, and told the youngest to go downstairs, get his shoes on, and get to the car.
I went back down to the open garage to smoke and pace and fume and panic and freak out because we were SO LATE!!! Not just five minutes. Not just ten minutes.
A few minutes later, when the youngest had not emerged, I opened the door from the garage to the basement to see what was taking him so long.
He couldn’t find his shoes.
“How can you not find your shoes?!?!?!” I asked. “They were RIGHT THERE,” I said, pointing to the landing.
Pretty much at the same time, he said, “I don’t know, the last time I saw them, they were right there,” and pointed to the same spot on the landing of the stairs.
Last year, every day after school, he would take off his shoes in the kitchen and chuck them down the stairs. Mostly they landed on the stairs, and I spent the whole year yelling at him not to do that because someone was going to trip on them. I asked him to put his shoes on the (empty) shoe rack at the bottom of the stairs.
He finally started taking them off in the living room and leaving them next to the couch he sleeps on.
Two weeks ago, I bought him new shoes (just like the ones in the picture above!). His shoes from last year were in horrible shape, and I hadn’t had the extra money at the start of the school year. I buy the boys Nike or another good brand that will last a while (after many years of having to buy several pairs of shoes from Walmart to make it through a school year). So, they were a $90 pair of shoes.
His abandoned old shoes sat by the couch in the living room last week while they were at their dad’s. For some reason, my rat terrier, Pinot, decided she was going to start chewing on shoes and had eaten part of each lace by midweek. My guess is that she misses the kids when they are gone because I’m boring. One day, she looked right at me, jumped up, grabbed one of his old shoes, and started chewing on them. That’s when I noticed the laces had been eaten.
When the kids got home on Friday, and my youngest took his shoes off, I grabbed them and chucked them down the stairs, making sure they landed on the landing off to the wall side so they were out of the way. I explained that Pinot suddenly decided to take up shoe-eating, and I wasn’t about to let her eat his new shoes. Yes, I should have walked them down and put them on the shoe rack, but when they get home from their dad’s, it’s chaotic for like the first hour or two. Also, the number of flights I do on any given day is too many.
So, Monday and Tuesday when he got home from school, he chucked his shoes down the stairs and all was right with the world. Until this morning.
We both looked all around the landing, in the hallway leading to the garage door, in the laundry room. I ran upstairs screaming and frantic. “How can you lose a pair of shoes! An entire pair of shoes, just gone! They have to be SOMEWHERE! Where did you put them? Where did you take them off?” I looked all over the kitchen and under the table. I scoured the living room and under the couches. I looked in his room (even though he hadn’t been in there). I ran back downstairs looking everywhere and getting more distraught. “Where did they go?!?!?!?!? Where did you put them?!?!?!?!?!”
And that is when I completely and totally lost it.
“HOW CAN SHOES JUST DISAPPEAR????? HOW IS THIS MY LIFE? WE ARE SOOOOOOO LATE!!!! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR SHOES??? I’M JUST DONE! I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE. I’M DONE PARENTING. I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE!” There was an onslaught of swear words, and throwing things around in the downstairs hallway, running upstairs to check the bathroom for his shoes…and back down at a loss for where to even check.
As an afterthought, I popped my head into the car and said, “Have either of you seen your brother’s shoes???”
My middle son softly said “My bad,” got out of the car, went in, and brought the shoes out.
“GO TAKE THEM TO HIM RIGHT NOW!! WTF????”
Some mornings, I’m too upset to say anything to them on the way to school. Some mornings, I’m so defeated that I giggle the whole way to school. Some mornings, I just give up being upset because it’s a waste of precious energy and just settle into my failures.
This morning was not one of those. It was all too much. I’ve had a breakdown looming for months.
Most importantly, I needed to give them instructions for what to do after school since they were walking to their dad’s because I had to be at the local TV station from 2:40-4:00 pm to do a segment on the Quad Cities Beer book that was published a couple of months ago. It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal as they walk to their dad’s after school on dad weeks. But, I wouldn’t be available for my daughter to message me during that time. Long story short = there are issues daily with her getting from school to her dad’s house after school. Even on dad weeks, I manage getting her home through the kids’ group text messages… The two older boys were staying for computer club after school. Sometimes she is done after period 5 and needs to meet the oldest to have him walk her home. When she has to stay for period 6, she needs to meet the two younger boys or at least the youngest in this case since the middle one was also staying for computer club. She gets confused a lot and needs a daily reminder of where to go and who to meet to get home. It’s all of two blocks, but she has functional disabilities. This is her second year of high school, and she still has to ask for someone to help her find her classrooms.
So, I was already anxious about not being available to walk her through getting home. The lateness and shoe incident and the anxiety of having to film a LIVE show…
“DO YOU KNOW WHO GETS THEIR KIDS TO SCHOOL LATE???? PARENTS WHO DON’T GIVE A SHIT. DEAD BEAT DADS. I’M SO DONE! I’M SO DONE BEING A FAILURE OF A PARENT. I DON’T WANT TO PARENT ANYMORE! I AM GOING TO GET ARRESTED OR IN SO MUCH TROUBLE FOR GETTING YOU GUYS THERE LATE EVERYDAY. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO??? TELL ME HOW TO DO THIS! WHAT WILL WORK TO GET YOU GUYS OUT OF BED??? I’M SO DONE. I’M SO DONE. AND I HAVE TO BE ON THE $%#$^#$^#$ (this is when I just cave to every swear word in the book) PAULA *&%^&$$^ SANDS *^*&^*%&^$&%&^% LIVE ^%&^%&^%&^%&^^ SHOW TODAY. I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS. I DON’T WANT TO DO ANY OF IT.”
I mean it went something like that. That’s probably not 100% accurate, but close.
And then I said the worst thing ever. “I FEEL LIKE SLITTING MY FUCKING WRISTS RIGHT NOW.” I wish I could take it all back, but I especially wish I would not have let this come out of my mouth. It was awful. It was uncalled for. And it wasn’t in one of those narcissistic parent ways. I wasn’t trying to get a reaction out of them, or make them do something for me, or guilt them in some way. It wasn’t a threat. My mouth was just seriously unchecked. I struggle with mental health on a daily basis. It’s been so much worse since COVID and since the divorce and custody battle. I would never in a million years act on this because I would NEVER EVER intentionally leave these children in the sole care of their father. They need me. I am responsible for them and I hold that responsibility dear. I would never do such a thing to them. They are the reason I am here. They are the reason I stayed with their father as long as I did, and they are the reason I had their father removed with a protective order when I realized how it was affecting them.
I immediately said, “Oh my God, I am so sorry. I did not mean that. You guys know that I would never do such a thing.” I glanced into the backseat and saw my daughter quietly sobbing. “I should not have said that.”
And then I explained to her that she needed to listen while I told everyone what the gameplan was for after school because I would not be able to check and respond to messages when they were getting out of school.
My oldest helped me trouble-shoot the issue. We didn’t know whether my daughter would get called into period 6 for the help center at that point, so we had to make two different plans for either situation. He would have time to walk her to their dad’s and get back to school for the after school computer club if she didn’t have period 6. If she did have period 6, the youngest would meet her and walk with her.
Now it’s Saturday, and it’s taken me almost all week in between things to write this. It was a week. Not one I ever want to repeat. And we were just as late on Thursday and Friday, but I kept my cool. There wasn’t another shoe incident. On Thursday, when I finally wasn’t overloaded to the max, I asked the middle son why he hid the shoes. He said because he had tripped on them Tuesday night. So, yes, I need to make the youngest put his shoes out of the way on the (empty) shoe rack. Ultimately, that was my fault.
The Paula Sands Live show went OK. Aside from the fact that I dropped off a book for them last week. I handed it directly to one of the producers. It disappeared. As apparently did the emails with several photos from the book that both myself and my co-writer seperately sent to the producer. That part sucked, but that was on them not me.
Here is a link if you want to see how great I am at pretending like everything is fine Hahahahaha: https://www.kwqc.com/2023/10/05/quad-cities-beer-history/?fbclid=IwAR2mEX0IBkZAL5dizyk04QXboNnW5BcnAXARnVHzBSDLLNHdGrFxytvc2QM
I pretty much cried the whole way home after I dropped the kids off Wednesday morning. I got home and starting writing this, not knowing really how long and involved it was going to be. Of course, I’ve had more time to process everything at this point and add some reflection.
I was really in a bad place that morning. I am in the grading week of a class that ended last week and didn’t have a new contract. That always puts me in a panicked spot because I rely on teaching class after class with no gaps. Even with no gaps in classes, it’s a struggle to pay bills. When I don’t have a new contract by week 3 of a class (five week classes) I start to panic. This time, I was almost thinking that it would be nice to have a week or two gap so that I could prioritize my writing, and start working on some of the writing projects that I have been wanting to do. I ended up getting a short notice contract on Thursday for a class starting on the 17th. Prep week starts on the 10th.
I started writing this essay, and figured I would finish it when I got home from my head-clearing, contemplating what I want to do with my life, and getting over my awful morning meltdown, bike ride. It was to be a clearing and trouble-shooting thoughtful bike ride where I stop in the middle and spend some time on one of the benches overlooking the river. I packed a fresh journal, pen, and some grapes in my little mini-backpack.
Just after I got everything ready for my bike ride, the most amazing thing happened. I got an email notification of my very first paid subscriber to this newsletter!!! I actually cried happy tears!!! I don’t require a paid subscription because I haven’t gotten to a point where I’m consistently writing. I aim to! You can always do a subscription to help support this, but again, it’s not required to read. So, I stood there in shock for a few minutes.
Like this is how my life is. That first paid subscription gave me hope. I never thought it would happen. And on one of my worst ever days.
With a beaming smile on my face, I loaded my bike, and totally forgot to take my backpack.
I stopped in a pavilion and took a bunch of deep breaths and spent some good time reflecting a bit. The ride there was pretty easy and that had me feeling confident. It was a 3.5 mile ride there.
I got on my bike to go back and realized why that first 3.5 miles felt easy. I had the wind behind me. Heading back, I was heading right into the wind and it was a struggle to make it back to my car. I had to pep talk myself the whole 3.5 miles back. That left no time for thinking coherent thoughts that weren’t why didn’t I pay attention to the wind!!
I got home, left my bike in the back and started right back in on this piece. I worked on it until I realized I had to rush to take a shower to get to the TV studio on time!!
I showered and got ready and ran to the car with maybe a minute to spare. That’s when I realized my bike was still in the back, and I needed to get it out because I was going straight from the studio to pick up the kids and needed the seats back up!
And that’s when my passenger side liftarm decided it was done… it broke free from the ball and inserted itself right into the top of my taillight. I held the hatch up and managed to get my bike out with one hand. I tried to get the liftarm out of the taillight, but it wasn’t budging. Thankfully, I was able to get the hatch latched, and I made it to the studio at exactly 2:40 pm.
This is all exactly how my life goes. Ups and downs; highs and lows. All right on top of each other.
You will start seeing me in your inbox regularly from now on. I’m thinking Wednedays or Thursdays.
Until next week. Thank you all if you made it this far!! And I’m not spellchecking because I’m going to be late for something if I don’t hit publish right now!
~Kristin