Last night I hit a wall, metaphorically. I had a mental break, but am alright now. In the American South we’ve got freezing temperatures and I’m a fire sign. First call yesterday was some screams at 6 AM and at 6:30 the little princess was crying too. The extra holiday activities like decorating and assembling presents has me drained. By 7 PM I was in the middle of the elder princess’ bedtime routine and crashed. As I laid in bed I thought, “This is hard.” Raising kids being hard is a statement I don’t think people will argue with, though I bet some would argue because dad is saying it. Another activity no one argues is hard is war, been there done that, so I feel justified listening to my gut on this. This reminds me of when my queen was in residency and I had a similar feeling of, “this is hard”, so I went online to look for advice to spouses during residency. Basically everyone was saying to suck it up, not acknowledging the difficulties at all. It’s possible to admit one is having a difficult time and still suck it because acting like nothing is wrong leads people to then think the problem is inside; like I’m the only person to ever have this problem and I’m wrong for thinking it. At that time I thought I have experience doing hard things and these people aren’t being honest. That brings my list of hard activities to war, becoming a doctor, and raising kids. If anyone has done all three without breaking a sweat, they are the superior being, or probably lying. On the bright side my Christmas trees have been getting bigger and have felt lighter.
Chris' Morning Pages 