It is hard to marry the concept that you can love your life but also struggle with different aspects of it. It is a dialectic. I love being able to provide food for my family, I am excited that we will eventually own our home, and I adore having the opportunity to spend the majority of my time with our daughter. I also hate cooking when I am mentally exhausted from working and commuting for nine hours. Watching money drain out of our account to pay for our mortgage can be disheartening. After my daughter’s tenth tantrum of the day all I want to do is lock myself in a room and beat my head against a wall.
There are so many good things to find about every day if you are able to change your perspective. But, realistically, some days I don’t want to change my perspective. There are periods where I sink into a funk and I’m more than willing to stay there.
It is normal. Life operates in a series of ups and downs and these fluctuations do help you appreciate the little things.
Today I am having one of those days where my fuse is short, and the day is long. I woke up with my head pounding and tried to be grateful that I had a normal migraine. At least I could see. At least I had all the feeling in my limbs. I, at least, appeared to be thinking somewhat coherent thoughts for 5:00 o’clock in the morning.
After five minutes of laying on the couch while my coffee brewed my daughter woke up crying. The sole reason I get up before the rest of my household is so that I can spend time by myself and get my mind straight.
If you are a mother, you know your child has different cries. This wasn’t whiny crying. This was a deep, hysterical sobbing that spoke of nightmares and loneliness. I knew any hope of a quiet morning had flown directly out the window.
So, I held my daughter while sitting on the couch with my eyes screwed shut because even the light from the tv made my head pound. At the very least, she was quiet. With only a few sniffles she drowsily watched cartoons while my headache abated to a low throb.
As the sun slowly came up my daughter begged to look at our chicks. She had heard them start “talking” and wanted to tell them good morning. Besides this being adorable, I always try to include her in chores. Hand-in-hand, we went to the brooder in the dining room where I quickly realized we were missing one chick. Moving the heat plate, I found it laying on its side, barely breathing. I quickly googled how to make an electrolyte solution, warmed up a towel, and fed it drops every ten minutes.
I am a naturally optimistic person. My mindset has always been that if I give things a try, most of the time, they will work out.
I nursed that chick for three hours only to have it die.
We have gotten pretty used to death on our homestead. We have had numerous livestock die from natural causes as well as predators, so it isn’t anything new. But there are deaths that just hit you harder than others. On this morning when nothing had gone right, I felt like a colossal failure. Despite my best efforts, it hadn’t really mattered that I’d nursed it or cared for it. I felt as though I might have been better served doing nothing.
I can’t say my day got any better. My grief tinged my mood and the dull ache in my head made me wish for a dark room and quiet. My husband was working and was focused on getting everything done. I understood but felt lonely and isolated. With only my chores and my cranky, tired daughter, the only thing I felt like I had to look forward to was bedtime.
Tomorrow I will look backwards, and I know my natural resiliency will kick in. I will tell myself I survived it and can grow from it. But I know there will always be instants where I will continue to struggle. It is too easy to get caught up in moments that are hard and sometimes those moments seem to encompass everything.
I believe that it is imperative to put value on your experiences, whether they be positive or negative. A life well-lived isn’t a life without problems. Working through difficulties and accepting them as they are is what makes us. Even when it feels like they are breaking us.
There will always be days where it feels like I cannot take one more thing going wrong. Where every issue seems like something so massive that I am not sure I will be able to make it through. I will learn to accept those days and not to try to save them. Sometimes, the only thing we can ask for is just to survive, knowing that on other days we will thrive.
Are there days where you feel like you are reaching you’re breaking point? How do you get through them?
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