Am I falling apart or just another tired mother?

Thoughts on exhaustion, fantasising about escape and the weight of love when you have young children

Oscar Keys @unsplash

I have been quiet on here lately. Possibly hiding. These are some non-sequential thoughts to explore why.

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Grey mountains jut out from the earth in every direction, their pale peaks jagged and defiant. There is a special serenity at this height – to be literally in the clouds, looking out over pastures of emerald-green grass, your boots crunching on ancient stone while the world continues in miniature below. It’s magic. Or at least I think it must be. I wouldn’t actually know. Because I’m not there. I’m sat in my kitchen in north London, looking at a photo on Instagram of someone else’s trip.

***

I have lost time lately: the month of May swallowed me in its vortex. Then June hurried by and the summer solstice caught me by surprise. It was only when I sat down alone that evening, gazing beyond my laptop screen and out into the garden, that I noticed the endless day. The bright sky at 9pm. 

The sun’s stubborn light felt like a tight embrace signalling the start of a break-up. ‘I love you, but,’ said the Sun, ‘this cannot last.’ Because we all know how our affair with summer ends: days shorten, flowers wither, leaves fall and the cold creeps in, one layer of clothing at a time. 

On the lightest day, I thought of darkness. 

My husband walked into the kitchen. I said to him, ‘I think I might be depressed.’ 

The little crease between his eyebrows deepened.

'Not depressed exactly,’ I said, backtracking, because I know what that can feel like, and this was not it.

‘Maybe burnt out,' I said. ‘No, not that either. Just tired… But more than that. I have not slept properly in two years. I’m exhausted. I’m overwhelmed.’

‘You should stay in a hotel this Friday,’ he said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I’m not,’ he said. 'You need uninterrupted sleep. One night won’t fix the problem. But it’s a start. I’ll book you in.’

‘But – the baby,’ I said. ‘The baby’s never had a night without me.’ 

(I thought: The baby is 20 months old now. I wonder how long I still get to call him the baby?)

‘He’ll be OK,’ said my husband.

I started to cry, because the idea of being in a hotel alone seemed wonderful. I imagined pristine white sheets, and room service, and writing this post to you from a charming wooden desk that faced towards the constellation of the city at night or – recalibrating my fantasy – rolling hills and a meadow speckled with wildflowers. I imagined writing this to you with some great ‘learn’ about motherhood. Something to say, Ah-ha! I have found the answer to all of this. All I needed was a hotel room of my own.

‘Maybe I should,’ I said.

‘You should,’ he said. ‘That’s sorted then.’ 

I started to research hotels. Casually scrolling at first. Just curious, not committed. Then my budget grew steeper. One with a restaurant made sense, perhaps one with a pool. A double bed obviously, maybe a freestanding bath… Well, if I’m going to have one night away in two years, I want it to be somewhere nice.

Then Friday came round. And I didn’t go to a hotel. I made excuses. The baby is teething. He has an ulcer on his tongue. He’s waking up at 3am and 5am. It’s not fair on you. We have Saturday plans anyway. It’s just not the right time.

‘Soon though,’ I said. ‘Soon. I’ll pick a date.’ 

***

I realise I keep having the same conversations.

***

Last month, I met up with my sister in the woods down the road from my house. When I arrived, she was there already, dressed in elegant wide-legged Cos trousers with a maroon scarf draped around her shoulders, sat on a fallen tree covered in fungus and furry with webs. She had a pencil in her hand, as she often does, with a sketchbook on her knees; on its paper bold black lines formed branches that stretched to a sky beyond the page. 

‘We don’t have to stay here,’ she said, sensing my fear of spiders and aware there was a cafe nearby and caffeine might help. But we stayed seated – the woods were peaceful and I was jittery enough. 

‘I’m just tired,’ I said, but I’m sure my sister heard the crack in my voice. My to-do list felt vertiginous, so much planning, prepping, sorting, and my four-year-old son had just been ill, off nursery for a week, feverish, pale and sweaty; his usual feral energy muzzled by his body battling some infection. I’d been anxious, checking him constantly, but had also been swamped at work, deadlines non-negotiable. At one point, he had climbed into my lap and placed his head against my chest, while I stretched my arms over his shoulders and edited a page on InDesign.

I said to my sister, ‘I feel like I am achieving nothing, but constantly doing something.’ 

(I didn’t say: I wonder if there is something wrong with me. I have been thinking this more often. I can’t seem to get my shit together.)

(I also did not say – because I didn’t have to – because she questions this as well: How do we balance work and childcare and no regrets and guilt and our own ambitions and being present and worrying we’re not doing enough and worrying we’re not good enough and having it all but also thinking how is that even possible really?)

I told my sister that when I scroll through the lives of others, it is not the late nights at bars or parties that trigger pangs of jealousy, but the leisure time of those who have much older children, or have chosen not to have children, which I envy the most. Space, physical and mental, and quiet. To not always be needed. To not feel responsibility all the time. 

I told her that I liked the idea of a long brunch in a piazza having hopped on a plane to Europe. Or, ‘Look,’ I said, showing her the photograph on Instagram I’d seen of the mountain range – how incredible it would be to trek through a place like that, to see the world from up there. And of course, she could not deny it. It would be incredible. Though she held back from saying what I am sure she was thinking: that even before I had kids, I never showed much interest in mountain climbing. That even when I could hop on a plane spontaneously, I rarely did. 

I told her that I have been getting a migraine once a month for the past six months – with it an ‘aura’ that zigzags in a corner of my vision no matter which direction I turn, my sight pixelated as if the planet is briefly glitching but only I can see it. The doctor said it’s likely hormonal – the way many things a woman experiences are often explained. And it probably is – I could track this headache by the moon. But still, it unsettles me, this new chaos in my brain. 

My sister told me I need to look after myself better. 

‘Take more time for yourself,’ she said.

‘I know.’ 

‘It’s important.’

 ‘I do,’ I said, ‘It’s just been one of those weeks.’

***

I remember once writing in my notebook: ‘To love is to worry.’ I realise I worry so much these days.

***

About a year ago, my mother implied that I was obsessed with my two children. She said it from the far end of a dining table during a long weekend lunch, her glasses perched on her nose, observing me as if a specimen. 

‘It’s very sweet how much you adore them,’ she said. 

I didn’t get into it with her how odd I thought this comment was (for many reasons), but she was right, I am obsessed with them. Thoughts of them infiltrate all the other thoughts. When I wrap them in my arms, I inhale them, their different scents, earthy and sweet. An addict.

***

Parenthood is both precipice and summit. Some days, it is a slow, steep climb on unforgiving rock – your knuckles dry, your shoulders sore – while you lurch onwards, trying to stay balanced. Other times, you stumble upon moments of breathtaking beauty that make you feel as if you’ve discovered the meaning of everything. Moments that often aren’t even the big moments: a cuddle while watching Toy Story; sharing a croissant in the sunshine; a conversation that starts ‘Mummy, did you know…’, or the simple perfection of a small hand clutching yours, warm and smooth and soft. 

Of course, just one wrong thing said, one banana peeled incorrectly, a hard no, the audacity of boundaries, a wet sleeve, a snapped twig, the wrong outfit, a broken truck, a forgotten snack, a late nap, or no nap, or the wrong type of nap, and you slip onto rockier terrain. You can lurch from sublime to savage in a second.

***

As my sister and I headed to my house via the cafe, I ordered a hot chocolate, something I rarely drink, and she insisted on buying it for me. ‘Oh, no, you don’t have to,’ I said – but in truth, I enjoyed the cosy familiarity of my older sister gently mothering me. Then we walked back through the park, our matching black Birkenstocks striding through grass, and I said to her:

‘I know I complain that it’s tough. I know I need space. I know there are a million things I could do instead, but – the thing is – for me – if I didn’t have them – if I wasn’t a mother I know I would want to be – so if I did go up that mountain, then I’d just be up a mountain wishing I could have them.’

‘Yes,’ she said. Because she knows me better than anyone in the world. ‘You would.’

***

It has almost become a joke now, this hotel, this mythical night away, a meme in our lives after just a week.

Case in point:

It is the morning, I’m trying to file a piece that’s already late, my hair is wild for the amount of times I’ve run my hands through it, and my husband texts.

‘So which hotel are you staying at tonight then?’ he says.

‘HA’ I reply.

‘Oh, The Ha,’ he says. ‘I don’t know that one.’

He is texting from A&E, waiting for an X-ray on his hand.

Two hours later, he messages again.

‘Fractured,’ he says. A broken thumb. He cannot use his right hand for at least four weeks, doctor’s orders. I feel awful for him, he is in a great deal of pain. 

‘I’m so sorry,’ I write back.

(I do not say: When will I get to my hotel now?)

(But I think it anyway.)

Then I think, well, that’s that then. Out of my hands. 

***

I pick up the children from nursery later that day. There is a communal garden we walk past on the way home. The four year old scales a low wooden fence to race across it. 

The baby chases after him – well, not so much chases as… toddles. He’s almost a toddler, I see it now. That unsteady gait. His sweet knees bare in the sun.

I scoop him up. He wraps his legs around my waist.

‘Wait,’ I shout to my oldest. ‘Wait for me.’

And we go on.

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