Giggles from a nearby backyard merge with a cacophony of birds chirping; boisterous chatter narrating busy spring preparations of gathering materials, and building nests. Little green buds highlight each of the swaying branches outside our front window, each bursting with anticipation of bloom. The muddy yellow patch of lawn, slowly coming back to life. The last remnants of snow piles are now mere patches of dirt. The sun is higher and out longer each day. The degrees creep up and we get little teases of temperatures high enough to lose the coat and dare to don shoes instead of winter boots.
Spring.
Spring was always such an awakening for me: a reorganization of my home, inside and out. Excitement builds for the warmer weather and end of school year celebrations. Summer plans are made. The heavy clothes get put away. The snow gear gets packed up and the bulk is gone from our front hall and closet.
Then something happened a few years ago that shifted us off-track.
I’m not sure if it’s inevitable when your family is growing, or whether it’s a coming of middle-age experience, or what it is, but I’ve lost sight of that spring feeling of hope. It’s become a murky memory that I strain to bring into focus, without success.
The past four years have destroyed that rosy feeling I once had as each winter waned. One, I was pregnant with what was considered a “geriatric” pregnancy. It crippled me for all but one of the ten months my giant baby grew inside my womb. I was recovering from a head injury with a concussion, had a six and nine-year-old, and a dog to care for, with a travelling, working husband. The idea of enduring the hot, humid summer ahead while huge and incapacitated, with two kids to keep engaged, was terrifying. It turned out to be much worse that I could have imagined.
The next, I was nine months into parenting a third child who still hadn’t slept on his own – and never for more than an hour at a time. Exhausted is too gentle a word for that feeling of death warmed over. We were in the depths of respiratory sickness hell, with pneumonia challenging both baby and seven-year-old, and my husband was still absent 40% of the time. Time ceased to function predictably and spring was one blurry hospital experience merged with another (sometimes literally as we learned of periorbital cellulitis on the brink of bronchiolitis – and had our first ambulance ride to boot). We stumbled into summer with reduced cognition and very few memories (thank goodness for smartphones to snap photos).
The following spring, our 11-year-old was still recovering from an onerous encounter with mono that had her at home for months. I was transitioning her back to school by driving the hour round trip there, leaving her for two hours, and then turning around and making the hour round trip again to pick her up – every day. My husband had been between jobs all fall and winter and tensions had built up, as we all tiptoed around each other with barely any time to ourselves (it was our pandemic training I keep telling myself). He had started with a new firm and had a responsibility to prove his worth, hence the travel resumed at 200%. Our test quarantine continued with a violent run of norovirus through our home, negating Easter and birthday gatherings, despite it being our spring and summer to both turn 40. We were both intent on entering the new decade with a fresh perspective, sure that we were nearing the end of our dark tunnel.
A year later, and COVID-19 had arrived on Canadian soil and we were in full lockdown mode, a novel experience for most of us, and the uncertainty of what lay ahead was nerve-wracking. The toddler *still* didn’t sleep without major disruption, and gastrointestinal issues that had plagued him since birth, had taken a turn into the world of poop-withholding. Our 12-year-old’s anxiety had now fixated on the stomach flu (an issue since the year before’s family affair with it). We fielded worries about whether she had contracted it, looked like she had it, was at risk of catching it, and assessed each of our bodily functions. We analyzed our food’s condition, origin, quality, age, level of cooked, colour and smell. Over and over, all day, every day. We had spent the fall and winter navigating health concerns with my mum and had been forced to take a step back from accepting her assistance with childcare. My own health was failing, and I awaited several specialist appointments to suss out the root to various ailments, including the three inch suspected lipoma I had removed a few weeks before lockdown, (I say suspected, because the hospital lost the tumour in the pandemic onset chaos). Our 9-year-old was in deep withdrawal from hockey and friends, and although school had been rocky, became completely unhinged with the lack of face to face or synchronous connection with his classmates and teacher. We began this year facing many uncertainties and faced tremendous challenges, for which we felt wholly unprepared. I was on the verge of complete burnout in February and had no idea what was ahead. As we sheltered in place as a household, and our hectic schedules came to a crashing halt, having lost connections with so many, our family also found something: ourselves, and each other.
Sounds promising, am I right?
I also veered over the edge and did ultimately reach burnout. Physical symptoms had manifested and had become crippling, as my body cried out for intervention.
The overwhelm mounted so high, it had buried me.
I started on medication to help with the chronic pain, anxiety and mood. I struggled with the term “anti-depressant.” I wasn’t sad, or hopeless or lethargic? “Anxiety” didn’t fit either – I saw anxiety in remarkable different forms with my two older children. I wasn’t anxious by nature. What I was, was tapped out – my body and mind were literally overwhelmed with the task of existing and were shutting down. The means with which I was able to administer any “form of self-care were no longer enough to bolster my well-being,” my psychologist wrote to my family doctor. It was time to intervene chemically, allowing my adrenal glands to replenish and my cortisol levels to settle. It was a challenging transition, and certainly wasn’t a quick fix.
Making that decision allowed me to get closer to a reset, and has literally saved my body from self-destructing.
As December rolled around, not many of our annual traditions looked familiar, but I was fixated on sending out our photo holiday cards and expanding on our annual family update, in a year when we needed connection more than those before. We hadn’t fully eased into what our new roles entailed, but I confidently said that the changes had been positive; the bond, closer; the outlook, brighter. I truly believed we had turned a corner, and would come out of all this stronger.
None of of us could have ever imagined the implications of a global pandemic, and many have had unimaginable losses. We began the current year in lockdown and now, four and a half months in, here we are again, having only had a handful of weeks with slightly lifted restrictions in between. We’ve lost all the support workers that had brought our family that elusive hope through the fall.
The kids are struggling.
We are struggling.
I am struggling.
We’re all grieving on one level or another; whether it be a wedding cancelled, or a baptism unattended, a loved one’s final days or weeks, spent without contact, funerals that couldn’t happen or had to without the comfort of embracing to share our grief, goodbyes that had to be from afar, hellos that haven’t even been able to truly happen.
It seems that we’ve missed out on so many of the wonderful connections that make us human, that fill our souls, or help us heal, and yet all the shitty aspects of our mortal reality, like cancer, and unexpected death, job losses, missed opportunities and accidents, lost friendships and broken hearts? They’ve all continued on with a searing pain that echoes in our hearts and homes.
So here we are, at the outset of Spring and I’m wondering how to regain that hope and positivity the season once brought me. We’ve begun by purging – both the physical stuff that seems to occupy every surface and line every empty wall of our home – but also of the toxic thoughts and relationships that have wasted so much of our precious time already. I’ve prioritized a sweaty, heart-pumping, strength-building workout to my every day, and made sure that I’m chemically balanced with the help of medication. I’m sharing my truth, reaching out for help, setting boundaries, and lessening expectations – of myself and others. I hear the Good job mama‘s, and the You’re doing a great job’s, and I often feel pride.
Hell yeah! This is tough shit!
BUT we are managing, and these kids are so very fortunate that we’re – I’m – pouring my heart and soul into making sure they embark on adulthood equipped to forge their own paths, and have healthy relationships.
Often though, I feel like a total fraud.
I snapped and yelled at my 3 year old today when he took a water bottle and squirted water from end to end of the house. It was only water.
I told my 10 year old if he threatened his little brother again he could live elsewhere. It breaks my heart to know that his little brain could hear things like “do it or I’ll punch you in the face!” but how much better I am to make the aggressor feel shamed instead of understanding?
I told my 13-year-old that I couldn’t handle hearing her tell me she was “feeling anxious” one more time today. Every time, the string of words orchestrates my own anxiety levels into a crescendo, threatening the inevitable denouement.
I screamed and yelled FUCK!!! until my body shook and I sobbed through my workout – adjacent to my family eating a lunch that I didn’t make, but rather, picked up from the bakery, with which they each had various problems.
I thought that was the tipping point of the day and really, it was only the first of many crests.
I felt tossed and beaten as the demands from my husband and kids bombarded me along to the soundtrack of my 3-year-old shrieking with pleas for escape from his grandmother, who has hit her own wall of true engagement.
I’m writing this while hiding in my bedroom, letting my mum and husband fend for themselves in figuring out dinner for everyone.
I’ve started and stopped this journal entry over a dozen times, torn between not wanting to whine about, and not wanting to sugarcoat, our reality.
The reality is, that I lost my temper when I ventured down to find out that my mother also had abandoned them all to retreat to her room. I proceeded to seek her out to yell about her audacity to have her own panic attack when she already burdens me with managing many of her worries, feigning (?) incompetence, on top of my own.
I made the mistake that I make too often, and I carried my emotions back down to my family and snapped at my 10-year-old, drawing the line at his dictatorship over us and his siblings, knowing full well what a trigger that would be.
We watched in horror as his rage unleashed and he whipped his fork across the room at our large picture window, the ting of the glass reverberating as we watched, half expecting it to shatter. I should have de-escalated; we’ve certainly had enough training. I pressed further.
“Shut up you shithead” he hurled back at me from between his siblings at the counter.
My husband joins us both in snapping, and lunges forward, bending over the island separating us and the kids.
“Don’t you dare tell your mother to shut up or call her those names again! Don’t you call anyone those names again!”
As if released from it’s trajectory, more cutlery flies across the room again, aimed this time, specifically at the window, with more force, with more rage. The glass wobbles, sure to go this time, and yet withstands the impact.
M’s voice deepens as much as it increases in volume as he banishes H from the room.
“Leave now! Upstairs! You will NOT throw things to damage our home. Your behaviour is dangerous and you cannot be around anyone right now!”
Clearly H had crossed a line: an 8’x5′ window was not as easily replaceable as the decade-old melamine plate had been earlier.
“NO!” he rages back at us, his siblings shrinking away from each side of him, both scared to move from their chairs.
M lunges around the counter and H jumps down and runs screaming to the staircase but refuses to climb it.
“No! he screams at his dad. “Shithead!”
M, calmer now, but with a stern, steely voice. “You need some time by yourself. Upstairs. NOW!”
“Pisshead. No! Asshole! I’m not going!”
SCREEEAAAM!!!!!!
SCREEEEEEEAAAAAAM!!!!!!
M, defeated, joins us back in the kitchen, where tears are streaming down C’s cheeks and she pushes the remainder of her dinner away from her, appetite ruined, and her body frozen. A clings to me, asking me to cover his ears as he buries his head in my chest.
Minutes later, H returns, slides back into his chair and carries on as if nothing has happened at all.
The chorus is over, and we start into the next verse. I’m not sure how long this song is but my voice is hoarse.
Yes, I picked up the groceries via curbside pick up!
I’ve left them on the counter.
Our sheets and towels are clean.
Our beds are all unmade.
The laundry is up to date.
It litters each room in baskets and piles; invisible labels of to iron, to put away for the next season, to donate, to pass on, to keep for A, to mend, to stain-treat.
The main floor is neat and vacuumed daily.
The dust has formed tumbleweed in the hallways and around the furniture in many other rooms, off-camera.
We purge and declutter, now only minimally decorate, and promptly pack up decor after each holiday.
Our basement looks like hoarders live here and our windows are too murky to see through.
The thing is, we’re not striving for perfection. Each day we start again, try again, practice what new information is shaping our habits and we make progress. Progress is good. Progress is growth. I saved a story I saw posted on social media recently, about a young man feeling sorry for an old man, lamenting this covid-reality, is the world in which he is living for his final chapter, after already experiencing the atrocities of so many eras. The older man said “no, don’t feel bad for me at all. I’ve learned to look at the world, not as a whole, but as all the little experiences strung together.”
“Man Makes New Friend.”
“Woman Shares Meal With Family.”
“First Flower of Season Blooms”
“Grandmother Feels Warmth of Grandchild’s Laughter.”
I’m not a big believer in the stay positive, be positive mantra, as that too is toxic, but there’s something to be said for taking notice of the little things and giving moments of gratitude value.
Today I’m managing the kids on my own, everyone has stayed calm. School work is complete (for the most part). Classes attended. Meals eaten. I even managed to squeeze in my workout when M came up for a 30 minute lunch break. It’s 3:30 and I haven’t showered, no one has been outside or done anything physical, aside from me, and yet, it’s been great. I even managed to schedule our first COVID vaccine doses!
Summer may look a little lighter still.
So, I suppose it really is the spring I’ve been striving for all these years.