Before I was a parent, which is fifteen years ago, I led a very organized, you might even say controlled, life. I could pretty much predict day-to-day what might happen, and I liked it that way. It was safe. It was managed, and it allowed my creativity to soar. Whatever energy I might have expended trying to keep things in check when into my work instead. I hadn’t been a mom very long when the one constant of parenting was made really clear to me: just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, something comes along which blows you sideways. There is no homeostasis whatsoever in my life anymore, and the stupid thing is that I keep expecting it. You’d think by now I’d have copped onto the constant flux, but no.

I can’t take it when Colin wails miserably every single time I leave and come home, yelling at me that he doesn’t like school, he doesn’t like his sitter, he wants MAMA!! 

My mother’s room is flooding and while we try to salvage her papers and the rug, the plumber discovers the heat isn’t working either. I look at her pale face and I would do anything to spare her this problem.

I am out of my mind that Neve fluctuates between needing me to sit right next to her while she draws or does homework and then is so cold to me every morning, snapping at me as I ask her how she slept.

I am upset for hours when a teacher calls from school to say that Dex has still not passed in his project (which I know nothing about) and that he’s asked him repeatedly. I am a wreck when I bring it up to Dex and he starts sobbing, saying he just can’t seem to remember anything these days.

Then I need to settle down and collect myself and work efficiently? I have a theory that the more plugged in you are to your kids’ lives, the harder it is to focus on work. You need to separate and be blissfully unaware of life at home to work well. But maybe that’s just me, I’m so used to being the emotional life raft for this bunch.

They cling to me, they push me away, they want my soothing, they want me to leave them alone, they want me, they don’t. I lie down in bed at night feeling pummeled by the day’s events, and then here comes Tom, wanting me to listen to his strategy for s project or brainstorm over a speech he has to give and if I say I’m tired, he’s hurt.

Who’ll come to my emotional rescue?