We are serious about COVID…and this weekend we were so excited to go and get lunch at a hipster place on a patio during an “off “ time donning our winter gear.  I needed the break.  I had been ill, not with COVID, but a cold, and getting out to something “normal” would feel good.  The kids felt otherwise.  It ended with an appetizer, some drinks, and going home angry.  And then me sobbing…on the lakefront…typing up my thoughts.

I’m not looking for sympathy.  But lately, my nerves are raw.  I think it’s a culmination of a lot of things.  I’m a new mom…that may be weird to process as my children are 13 and 11.  But yes, I’m a new mom.  Many of you know what it feels like to be a new mom…late night feedings, colic, and diapers. Bottom line…we have less time.  We try hard.  We are figuring it out…  Because our kids deserve it.  But I wake up to my 13 year old, trying to explain to her how to be a woman because she is “in it”…and I fall woefully short, explaining how to be a Black woman—this is where I lean on my friends, who are now family…Auntie, you know who you are. I explain to my son the importance of investing every ounce of his intelligence into his education, and keeping both hands on the steering wheel and his hood down.  I’m currently processing that while living in a pandemic.  I also happen to be an essential worker as a teacher during these times.  It’s trying to say the least.  Not the events, times we find ourselves in, but how deeply I feel things.  

I’ve always felt things deeply.  Almost to a fault.  We are in times where everything is magnified.  Where we are told to “agree to disagree” over basic human rights, human decency. Where “just suck it up and work like the rest of us” is slung at us as I bust my ass working through a pandemic.  

My nerves are RAW.

Lord, I am tired.

I’ve been a mom for 10 months.  

During a pandemic. 

 To two amazing, but pre-teen and teenage children.  

While we navigate a polarizing election.  

During a war on race,

As I work as a middle school teacher. 

 I need help.  

Self-care.  

To be honest…I’m not sure what that looks like.  I know many moms don’t know what that looks like, but I would say this is especially true of parents of older children through adoption.  Self-care goes out the window.  You don’t just have this little beautiful, baby to care for basic needs…you have a full child, human being, with thoughts, prerogatives, an entire history. 

It’s these moments that Eli and I lean into each other.  And boy are we leaning…his job, life, experiences, are no easier.  I am an emotional processor…and I have no time to process.  He is a doer and he has no time to do.  

So our “story”.  I’ve got two kids doing virtual school.  I’m a middle school teacher during a pandemic.  My husband is in crisis management and a shit show with his own job.  We are tired.  Completely normal and perfectly abnormal.  But my nerves are raw.  I can admit it.  

~Chelsea