The luxury of being tired

Last night at bedtime Khalil, sporting his blue floral nightgown and back-to-school haircut, puckered his lips and asked for a kiss. I sat on his bed and leaned in. “Now, let’s all kiss together,” he instructed. “Daddy, you kiss me on the lips and Mama, you kiss my cheek.”

I met David’s eyes and we smiled. Khalil, at five, wants nothing more than to have “everyone all together.” Bedtime often includes some creative triangulation of family affection. Recently, at Khalil’s request, I kissed David’s elbow.

Khalil, when we bestow the focus and attention he craves, is one-hundred-percent joy. He rarely gets bored, and he thinks everything we say is brilliant and hilarious. I have the capacity to make him belly laugh for hours. 

And I need a break. 

I feel guilty, of course. Because I’m disabled, our family’s division of responsibility is more equitable than many cishet couples. I know I’m lucky that my partner is a true partner. And yet, in the last few months, parenting burnout has formed a veil over my personality and capacity for joy. 

For me, exhaustion shows up as irritation; I learned that this is my tell in graduate school while working as a therapist. I had been seeing highly-traumatized clients for months and, without realizing it, had reached my limit. I was preparing for an appointment and reading some particularly chilling intake notes, and instead of compassion, I was overwhelmed by annoyance. 

When I’m tired, I become prickly. Every input and need and change is an assault. I imagine myself like a porcupine (or, as Khalil says, porky-pine). 

I started porcupining earlier this summer and, in recent weeks apathy, burnout’s other companion, joined. One of the gifts of my life is how easily I can access joy — a new poem, laughing with a friend, the cardinal that lands on my window — but, recently, that joy feels like it’s floating in the fog. Pale and distant.

With my mentor, I pinpointed the source of my exhaustion: parenting. My body, mind, and nervous system need a break from the minute-to-minute calibration of another’s emotions. From the energy and the noise and the worry and and and…

And so, with my mentor’s dogged insistence, I asked for some time off. David understood and, without resentment or hesitation, took Khalil on a local weekend getaway. While they ate pizza and ice cream and visited a splash pad, I had coffee with Mona, watched Bad Sisters, and made myself nightly affogatos. I had hoped that when they returned, I would be buoyant and ready to jump back in but instead, when they crashed through the door, my muscles tensed, and I realized just how much I need alone time. 

Just a very casual mom

My bucket had not been filled enough. I’m still running on reserves. 

As a disabled parent, I’m far more accustomed to trying to prove my worth as a parent. The imposter syndrome that I wrote about in 2019 hovers close, and I scramble to show myself and others that I am not inadequate, not unfit. 

home alone!

Ironic then, that this refusal to acknowledge my needs hinders my ability to care for Khalil more than my disability ever does. He’s used to my mobility limits and my fragile joints. What scares him more is painted-on joy and impatience.  

I am going to a hotel alone in September, I have been locking my door when I write, and school starts again soon. I’m admitting that I have needs that aren’t disability-related. 

Khalil eating pizza on “vacation”

I wish for you the capacity to ask for what you need and the space to take a break from whatever is pushing you to your own version of apathy and aggravation. 

And for myself and my disabled parent readers, may we have the freedom to let go of the need to prove our worth. May we be protected enough by society that we can be regular old tired and cranky parents, every once in a while. 

---

This month’s poem is one of my favorites.

Peonies
Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open ---
pools of lace,
white and pink ---
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities ---
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?