How Baby

Relevant to something I tweeted the other day, as well as last week’s Motherlover page, as well as this NYT article that made the rounds the other day, I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed by the number of things I have to keep track of in a day. I’m reaching a sort of critical mass of video calls, work, and household management stuff, combined with pandemic fatigue and regular seasonal blues. Everything keeps happening so much all the time, you know?

It’s hard to convey, like… the sheer amount of mental energy involved in homeschooling (tech support! finding resources! making it fun! documenting her work!), or how anxious I am that I don’t have enough unbroken time to write or draw for work, or how I’m almost always thinking about Momo and how to make this time easier for her and how to be present as one of the only people she interacts with, or how much it stresses me out to live in a house that’s steadily getting more messy and chaotic and the only cure is more work.

And I think, often, about how so many parents are experiencing this along with me: the unexpected and not-quite-consensual narrowing of our worlds down to the domestic sphere. And I think of how lucky I am that I get to stay home, that we have a home, and I feel guilty for not being able to manage what’s expected of me without being ungrateful for that privilege. And then I feel resentful that I didn’t get to choose this, that this year of our lives has been stolen.

Anyway. Can’t talk right now, I’m doing hot mom shit.