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After a hard day’s work…
Who came up with this sentence? Well I’m going to mock it only because everyone claims I did, though I don’t remember it. But really Michelle? After a hard day’s work? What did I expect me to write when I came up with this?
First of all, Michelle Lynn Grewe, define day. It’s a very abstract term, especially to mothers of multiple children, and especially to mothers with PTSD. You really should have known this.
When I was in my 20’s, I’d work hard, and play harder. You could tell when it was audit season (nonprofit accounting) because those were the nights at the bars where you might find me duct taping someone to a pole or unzipping a MEDEVAC pilot’s uniform with my teeth so I can do a body shot across his chest. After that, I got to do something really cool. Pass the fuck out. It was glorious. Sleep.
Now that I’m in my 30’s, pushed out 3 babies (back to back)… working hard means something entirely new.
It became a 24/7 job, full throttle, balls to the wall, nonstop work-out. You don’t have time to play hard, or play at all, or even sleep for that matter. After a couple years of it, nothing but work, no rest, no end of the day, no potty breaks, I’ve learned to pace myself.
I can’t believe I used to run all day with my heart at maximum heart rate until 10 PM where I’d settle down and walk for a while. That’s not a metaphor. That’s pretty literal. There just was no other way with a baby and 2 toddlers and no help and endless scrutiny.
What is a day though?
Technically, it’s a 24 hour period to define approximately how long it takes the earth to rotate. We measure it with a man-made calendar system.
Our bodies don’t register at technical levels. We are raised through repetition to register a day by waking up. Waking up tells your brain “It’s a New Day!” We train our bodies to notice a change in day by taking a huge break to separate those days… up until you become a mother at least.
My days still bleed into the next day without any real definition for me, and people still judge me for thinking it’s Monday when it’s really Thursday and I missed that doctor’s appointment yesterday, but I at least sleep now (2 of the 3 kids didn’t sleep, if you got a sleeping kid, don’t judge me because you got it easy). I don’t sleep 8 hours between the hours of 10PM and 6AM every night like normal people, but I sleep about 2 hours in the morning, lay down for 5 hours to get an hour nap in the evening (it really would only take 20 minutes if people would just let me do this), and around 3 AM, I get another 4 hours.
I sleep like a cat.
I sleep when the world lets me. I’m lucky to be sleeping because 5 years ago, I didn’t get to sleep at all really.
Ever notice our Presidents go into office young, and adorable, and they come out old, wrinkled and beaten? Motherhood does that to women too. I came into it sane and now I have 10 different medical diagnoses.
It’s because, after a hard day’s work, I want to
- eat a warm meal
- drink a shit ton of vodka and wiggle my ass like a whore at a bar
- watch an entire movie without interruption
- receive a full body massage with a little morphine
- sit on Facebook and actually SIT on Facebook without getting up for something or answering questions
- Sleep, actually lay down and fall asleep and STAY THAT WAY for at least 4 consecutive hours without someone waking me up for stupid shit, and now thanks to classical conditioning, it would be nice if my brain also goes through the entire sleep cycle and not just the dream state.
- Take a shower. I don’t really want to do that after a hard day’s work because it feels like more work, but that’s something I do miss doing daily. It would also be nice to take a whole shower without screaming, “In a minute!” every 30 seconds, and without freaking out every time a kid threatens to accidentally knock my clean towel on the floor or worse, smash it into that spot in between the toilet seat and commode.
- Actually have an end to a hard day’s work
But what ends up happening? After a hard day’s work, I start another day of working hard.
There’s nothing that happens to separate the two. Maybe if I set an alarm so a bell goes off at midnight every night and I scream HAPPY NEW DAY!, I’d keep better track of what day it is. Like that’s the point of the “day” when everyone dumps their tea and moves to the chair next to them to start the next tea party.
How does a Mother Define a Day?
A day doesn’t exist in Motherhood. We try to track them because schools obliviously still celebrate the Day because they don’t have actual experience with children, and if you don’t track them, your kid could miss a field trip. We still screw that up a lot because while we know that trip is on Tuesday, what we don’t realize is that tomorrow is Tuesday.
A lot of people still celebrate the Day. Doctors offices try to get you to schedule your illnesses for a specific date and time in the future. Work places set schedules for every day.
But mothers? We don’t have a Day. We have PAY DAY. Well we don’t get paid for being a mother, but I mean whatever day our income hits us. For some of us, our day is a week long, and for others, it’s half a month. But Pay Day marks a period in time where there’s a shift between one period in time and the next. We feel it because on pay day we get to finally purchase that ice cream we wanted, pay a bill that’s been stressing us out, and purchase a dinner instead of cooking it so we can watch half a movie. It’s like a temporary end to stressing out: the day we can afford to relax a little and wind down for a minute.
This part of Finish the Sentence Friday, which still feels like Monday Tuesday to me even though I know Monday Tuesday is over.
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