lagging

I think I'll always feel a sense of loss when I think of the laundry list of [laundry] and everything else between the baby's bedtime and my own early one, and the way I used to be able to... not.

I don't wish I wasn't working because I like my job, we need the money, I like being out and about, I felt trapped at home with the baby.

I wish I wasn't working because I'm always tired, I'm always in a loop, I'm always in a loop, I'm always in a loop, I miss my kid, S and I are on different planets.

There's been this shared head cold thing for the past week. There's been night shifts and long nights and early mornings and miscommunication and snot. We are two solo parents. This is really hard.
 
I am not really a perpetual motion machine. I am not always in go-mode. I am (I was) pretty good at knowing when I needed to say no, or back away, or take some time to myself. But now I'm trying to fake it and stuff down my instincts, because now I'm not on my own payroll.

I'm wondering how to find restoration. Do I have a secret pocket of unsinkableness?

I had --HAD-- this thing where I'd just poof and go for a solitary walk for an hour or hours when I needed to clear out my cobwebs and level out my emotions.

I had --HAD-- this thing where I'd spend an extra hour in bed in the mornings and read, or I'd go spend an evening at a thrift store.

I had --HAD-- this thing where I'd make a week's meal plan and shop and cook and clean up the kitchen afterward.

Now what I have is... guilt and irritation and heavy eyelids. Frozen pizza and cereal and stagnation.

Now what I have is a wonderful, snotty, iron-willed baby, who squawks and flails and laughs and is a spit up houdini and who smells like old cheese/baby shampoo/poop/heaven and who needs me, and whose care and affection necessarily trumps everything I'd be doing instead.

What a trade.