Mama, If Life Feels Heavy Right Now, This Is for You

I don’t know what your house looks like today.

Maybe the backpacks are already piling up by the door.

Maybe your calendar is covered in practices, games, appointments, school events and things you’re terrified you’re going to forget.

Maybe you’re trying to figure out what’s for dinner while answering an email from a teacher, looking for someone’s missing water bottle and realizing there’s a load of laundry in the washer that you forgot about yesterday.

Or maybe none of those things are the thing making life feel heavy right now.

Maybe it’s something nobody else can see.

But if you’ve been feeling like it’s all just a lot lately, I want you to know something:

I feel it too. ❤️

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This Time of Year Always Feels Like a Lot

There’s something about the beginning of the school year that makes it feel like life goes from 0 to 100 overnight.

One minute we’re in summer mode.

The next we’re packing lunches, signing papers, keeping track of practices, getting everyone where they need to be, figuring out homework, trying to get back into routines and somehow still doing all of the normal things that never stopped needing to be done.

The laundry didn’t stop.

The groceries didn’t stop.

The house still needs cleaned.

The bills still need paid.

Work is still there.

Dinner still needs to magically appear every single night. 😂

And we’re trying to make sure our kids are doing okay through all of it.

That’s the part I don’t think we talk about enough.

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Moms Don’t Just Carry Their Own Stuff

We carry everyone else’s too.

When one of our kids is struggling at school, we feel it.

When they’re nervous about making a team, we feel it.

When they get their feelings hurt, we might smile and encourage them and tell them it’ll be okay…

…and then think about it for the next three days. 😂

We worry about whether we’re giving each child enough attention.

Whether we’re too busy.

Whether they’re happy.

Whether we’re doing enough.

Whether we’re doing too much.

Whether we’re missing something.

And while we’re carrying all of that for the people we love most, we’re still trying to remember that we’re people too.

Sometimes that’s the part that gets pushed all the way to the bottom of the list.

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So Can I Sit With You for a Minute?

Not to tell you how to fix it.

Not to give you another routine to follow.

And definitely not to give you another list of things you should be doing. ❤️

Just to remind you that you don’t have to figure out the entire season today.

You don’t have to have the perfect school routine by week two.

You don’t have to attend every single thing.

Your house doesn’t have to stay perfectly clean.

Every dinner doesn’t need to be homemade.

You don’t have to say yes every time someone needs something from you.

And you don’t have to carry tomorrow while you’re still trying to get through today.

You don’t have to carry tomorrow while you’re still trying to get through today. ❤️

Erin Hamstra

Sometimes we need to make the lunches, get everybody where they need to go, hug our kids, clear one counter, order the pizza and call that a win.

Seriously.

That can be enough for today.

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I’m Reminding Myself of This Too

I don’t want to write this from the other side as though I’ve figured something out that you haven’t.

I’m right here in it too.

There are days when I look at our calendar and wonder how we’re possibly going to get everyone everywhere.

There are nights when the house is a disaster.

There are times when I’m trying to work while also being Mom and wondering if I’m giving enough to either one.

There are moments when I worry about one of my kids and wish I could carry something for them so they wouldn’t have to.

And there are absolutely days when I feel like I’m giving pieces of myself to everyone around me and wondering what’s left at the end.

So this isn’t me telling you, “Here’s how to do motherhood better.”

It’s me sitting next to you saying:

Yeah. Me too. ❤️

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Maybe We Can Make a Little Room

That’s really what I want this whole little corner of the internet to be about.

Not doing more.

Not becoming more productive so we can cram even more into our already-full lives.

But learning where we can make a little room.

Room to breathe.

Room to say no.

Room to leave something unfinished.

Room to take care of ourselves too.

Room to actually enjoy these kids we’re working so hard to take care of.

Because I know how easy it is to spend motherhood managing everything that we forget we’re also supposed to live it.

And I don’t want to miss it.

I know you don’t either.

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So, Mama…

If life feels heavy right now, you don’t need to have the whole semester figured out.

You don’t need to solve next month today.

Let’s just do the next thing.

And when that’s done, we’ll do the one after that.

We’ll mess some of it up.

We’ll forget things.

We’ll probably drive back home for a forgotten uniform or water bottle more times than we’d like to admit. 😂

We’ll have cereal-for-dinner nights and laundry-on-the-couch nights and everybody-please-go-to-bed nights.

And we’ll have really beautiful ones too.

The conversations in the car.

Watching our kids do something they love.

The hugs we didn’t know they needed.

The ordinary Tuesday nights that someday we’ll realize weren’t ordinary at all.

We’ll get through the heavy days together.

And maybe instead of trying so hard to hold everything perfectly, we can make a little more room to notice the good that’s already happening right in the middle of it.

One day at a time. ❤️

Less chaos. More life.

And if you needed this today, stick around. ❤️ We’re figuring this out together.