In yesterday’s post, I explained that I was keeping things short because I was super-duper tired. And man, was I ever. It was the kind of tired you can feel physically in your fingers, where each keystroke feels like lifting a boulder.
It was also the kind of tired that crashed anything resembling thinking and made me feel like my brain was swimming in tar. I stumbled through the motions last night, lurching around like some kind of damn Frankenstein’s monster. The kids were having fun running around and doing things that people who aren’t super tired do. Like jumping off stuff.
They did ask me if I wanted to join in, but I had to admit to the kids that I was, in fact, too tired to play.
It’s not like being tired is novel. Being a parent means probably being tired more often than not. But I generally try to muster a teensy bit of energy for play time, if for no other reason than to not fall into the habit always being too tired to play. (Cue “Cat’s in the Cradle” again.) I don’t want my kids to look back on their childhood and remember me as the guy who was tired all the time. Not that this would be inaccurate, I just don’t want them remembering that.
Anyway, reasons why I am tired vary. For one, work has been plenty busy and I’ve once again been juggling lots of calls, meetings, presentations, etc. That in and of itself is tiring, and as many quarantined, working from home parents know all too well, finding any kind of rhythm or routine is tough when kids are running around and home and work life are squashed together.
And second, I think the months and months of insanity, fear and stress we’ve all been enduring do take a slow, quiet toll. There are plenty of days I don’t notice it all that much, but other days it feels like an incredible weight. When I look in the mirror, unruly hair and scraggly white beard, I think often of this scene from Ghostbusters.
“You didn’t used to look like this.”
But, we soldier through, get as much sleep as one can, and live to fight another day. One of these days, things will turn around and when they do, I’ll so much spring in my step that I’ll be the first to be jumping off that backyard slide.
