I’ll Sleep When I Am Dead

“Oh no,” I hear from the back of the van as the morning radio news plays, and the four of us approach the school campus. “I left my backpack.”

These are not the words a single mom, who works full time, wants to hear one minute before dropping her kids off at school. A school she takes them to every day, which is NOT very close to home.

By the way, “she” is me.

After I let out my frustration and gave a quick lecture about how we need to remember everything as we walk out the door, I calmed down and accepted I would be a little late to work that morning, and some days stuff like this just happens.

We all make mistakes. Life is a mixed bag full of mistakes AND things we do right. Usually the “do right” takes up more space. Thankfully, this is only the second or third time this has happened all school year. But who is counting?

Here’s the thing: I am a FULL TIME single mom now. I used the term lightly before, when the kids’ dad still lived and worked in the same city as I do and we shared custody. About six weeks ago he started a new job in a city over three hours away, in a different state, actually. He is no longer here to help. He is no longer here to take up any slack, should it need to be taken. There is NO slack. The rope could easily strangle me.

Doctor’s appointments, left behind backpacks, sports practices, emergencies, school meetings, counseling appointments – ALL UP TO ME. Plus, we all have to eat every night. Also, our clothes have to miraculously get clean, the kids need new shoes and they could get sick any day. Or I could get sick. The popcorn could explode in the microwave! (Unrelated, but just saying). It’s truly a miracle we typically DO get out the door every morning with all the things we require.

This fine-tuned routine could be thrown off  by many things, a left behind backpack is just one thing to take the train off the track. And in the interest of not sugar-coating anything, I am exhausted. I am tired to the bone and there isn’t a whole lot of time left for the “self care” stuff people talk about. My toenails need to be painted because Spring is here and that means sandals and flip flops in the South (priorities). My shoulder is killing me from trimming the enormous holly bush/tree outside my bedroom window last weekend. So, I have fallen asleep with an ice pack on my shoulder each night. I have comforted a sad daughter many nights in the last week, and one evening it broke my heart to leave her crying herself to sleep. I may have done the same. Her sad = my sad.

Yet even though, every morning I get up and do it again, because that is what we do as parents who are present – we show up. We give and give and do and do because we have to and because we love them.

In the grand scheme of things, a second run to school to deliver my son’s backpack is not that big of a deal (and neither are my naked toenails). But it is enough to make me pause and be sad again for just a moment, for what life has turned into. Even small things feel extra hard when you do not have regular help from a partner (this is where I include the disclaimer that I have a wonderful boyfriend who helps when he can, however, he is also a single dad of two, and we have separate homes, so yeah, it’s just difficult…).

I know everyone’s life has challenges. Many moms like me have spouses in the military or who are gone across the world for long periods of time, or partners that travel often for work. Some people have spouses who are physically there but are checked out in other ways. We are all doing the best we can in the situation we are given at the time. My kids are my life and I feel blessed to have them with me the majority of the time now. However, it is a humongous pile of work going it (mostly) alone.

And kudos to the backpack leaver-behinder – he makes my coffee every morning before we head out the door and he adds just the right amount of half and half. Man, I do love that kid. And his sister and brother.

I guess I’ll sleep when I am dead.