Flicking the Off Switch
At exactly 9 pm, sometimes sooner, my parenting capacity shuts down completely. No reboot possible. Go to bed! I don’t care if you need water, can’t sleep, and have a sore tummy, need food. Just go to bed! I need the (slowly diminishing) time to myself before I can fall asleep. I need to be asleep by 9:30 or there’s hell to pay! Ok I’m already indebted – it’s easily after 9:30 now.
I have a request for the powers that be. Could I possibly fit the following into my day before noon – in ADDITION to 8 hours of work, of course: kids to and from school and activities; sports events; meetings with teachers; homework; chore supervision; personal errands like banking, shopping, mailing and getting the car serviced (to name a few); helping Jeff with the laundry and home maintenance; meal planning, shopping and preparation; baking; doctor, dentist and other appointments; exercise, yoga, dog walking, meditation; knitting, sewing and playing in community band…... Ok the list continues ad infinitim….. You get the picture.
Why before noon? Well my brain and body work. From 6 am to noon, I’m at my maximal physical and cognitive capacity. I can kick butt and solve the impossible problems in my work, parenting, and personal life. From noon onwards, I start to fade. Paying attention becomes a monumental task. Multitasking (a misnomer) is pretty much impossible. Remembering anything of importance requires several iphone reminder alarms – if I can remember to set them. I’m darn near paralyzed with fatigue so exercise seems insurmountable. On top of it all, my vision goes extremely double so even a mindless TV show or book is challenging. Then I get overtired and can’t even sleep. Then you can just throw some emotional turmoil into the mix and voila! A little bit of chaos.
This evening, my daughter was excitedly trying to tell me all about her school projects. I was preparing supper and juiced 2 oranges and a grapefruit directly onto the counter with no cup underneath. Well the dogs sure liked it. Jeff will be cursing the stickiness for days. Know what my daughter did? She apologized for distracting me from making supper as she knows I can’t handle that much at once. She’s already doing OT assessments on me and pointing out that I need compensatory strategies. Oh my! Who’s the parent/professional?
If I could finish everything of importance before noon I’d be superhuman. Sadly, this is impossible. So what am I going to do about it? A thousand ideas but no plan. Prioritizing overwhelms me. I know full well that I need to prioritize myself. But that’s not my true nature. I think it stresses me out even more to go against it.
How do I attain some balance respecting my current post-cancer challenges and necessary roles and responsibilities? I really have no idea. I could set the “SMART-est”goals and make action plans until the cows come home – it’s hardwired into us OT’s. But I don’t think I really know what I want. Except for one thing.
I want to turn off my parenting switch at precisely 9 pm.
I have a request for the powers that be. Could I possibly fit the following into my day before noon – in ADDITION to 8 hours of work, of course: kids to and from school and activities; sports events; meetings with teachers; homework; chore supervision; personal errands like banking, shopping, mailing and getting the car serviced (to name a few); helping Jeff with the laundry and home maintenance; meal planning, shopping and preparation; baking; doctor, dentist and other appointments; exercise, yoga, dog walking, meditation; knitting, sewing and playing in community band…... Ok the list continues ad infinitim….. You get the picture.
Why before noon? Well my brain and body work. From 6 am to noon, I’m at my maximal physical and cognitive capacity. I can kick butt and solve the impossible problems in my work, parenting, and personal life. From noon onwards, I start to fade. Paying attention becomes a monumental task. Multitasking (a misnomer) is pretty much impossible. Remembering anything of importance requires several iphone reminder alarms – if I can remember to set them. I’m darn near paralyzed with fatigue so exercise seems insurmountable. On top of it all, my vision goes extremely double so even a mindless TV show or book is challenging. Then I get overtired and can’t even sleep. Then you can just throw some emotional turmoil into the mix and voila! A little bit of chaos.
This evening, my daughter was excitedly trying to tell me all about her school projects. I was preparing supper and juiced 2 oranges and a grapefruit directly onto the counter with no cup underneath. Well the dogs sure liked it. Jeff will be cursing the stickiness for days. Know what my daughter did? She apologized for distracting me from making supper as she knows I can’t handle that much at once. She’s already doing OT assessments on me and pointing out that I need compensatory strategies. Oh my! Who’s the parent/professional?
If I could finish everything of importance before noon I’d be superhuman. Sadly, this is impossible. So what am I going to do about it? A thousand ideas but no plan. Prioritizing overwhelms me. I know full well that I need to prioritize myself. But that’s not my true nature. I think it stresses me out even more to go against it.
How do I attain some balance respecting my current post-cancer challenges and necessary roles and responsibilities? I really have no idea. I could set the “SMART-est”goals and make action plans until the cows come home – it’s hardwired into us OT’s. But I don’t think I really know what I want. Except for one thing.
I want to turn off my parenting switch at precisely 9 pm.
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