It's 8:35 in the morning. 8:35 is the time we absolutely need to be in the car in order to get everyone to school on time. I've already been up for two hours, packing lunches, letting out the dogs, and getting a head start on work. I'm in the kitchen, taking deep breaths, asking my 12-year-old daughter if she's ready to go.
She isn't ready. She's not even remotely ready. She's trying on outfits. She's putting on makeup. She's going into slow-motion mode because that's what she does when I sound the slightest bit annoyed. My 7-year-old son is in the living room, making his shoes talk to each other instead of putting them on his feet.
I've given warnings. "We need to go in 15 minutes. … 10 minutes and we're out the door!" to ensure my daughter understands. I've begged and pleaded with my son to put on pants. I've tried all the tricks, the tools, the hacks. But nothing works, because honestly, no one really cares if we're late but me. And now I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. It's barely a conscious act. It's just erupting out of me, and I can't make it stop.
At this point, I've already lost the battle I was trying so hard not to fight in the first place. Getting myself and everyone else in the house ready in the morning is like walking a tight rope. I'm trying so hard not to slip and fall off. I have to do it perfectly, calmly, carefully. It's an art form, a skill, an unending lesson in patience and organization.
But sometimes, there are one too many tasks. One too many tasks for one person to do alone. One too many tasks that means the entire morning unravels.
Sometimes, it's time to walk out the door and there's a missing sweatshirt, a sock that "feels icky," or some kind of fashion dilemma happening in front of my daughter's mirror. Some issues I can plan for. I can fix, redirect, or shrug off. Others mean someone is crying. We're definitely late. And I'm yelling. Again.
The thing that inevitably makes mornings much worse is that my oldest child, being her mother's daughter, does not respond well to stress. She doesn't respond to being rushed or criticized. And she definitely does not respond to yelling. I know this and understand this, as infuriating as it may be, because I have been known to dig my heels in. But it means that when she senses my brewing annoyance, soon to be rage, instead of throwing on her shoes, grabbing a hoodie, and heading for the door, she shrugs her shoulders, decides we are mortal enemies, and proceeds to make us later. It feels intentional. Mean. And yet she's only 12. I'm 36 and I can't keep my emotions from bubbling up from time to time.
It doesn't matter who is right or wrong or downright bratty, though. Yelling at your kids — I mean really yelling at them until your throat hurts and your eyes are bulging out of your head and your fists are clenched — is never worth it. Anyone who has done it, then sobbed after school drop-off at their horrible, defeating guilt, knows that. And while your kids may have gone to school, bumped into a friend, and totally forgotten that you failed, you won't. It'll stick with you all day, like the sore throat you try to soothe with extra-hot coffee.
Finally, when your tears stop cascading down your cheeks, and your eyes are puffy but dry, you try to reassess the situation. Maybe you reach out to a mom you know who has a similar struggle. A mom who, like you, is human and sometimes yells, then hates herself. Maybe she tells you to forgive yourself because you do so much for your kids, that everyone loses it sometimes, and that single moms are basically defying the laws of physics by how much rides on our shoulders and how constantly in motion we are.
On a day when you can be easily persuaded, if only because you need to be, maybe you believe her.
It is good and healthy to be gentle with yourself when you're trying your best. But it is also important to step back and ask yourself why this keeps happening. Because sometimes epic volcanic eruptions are nature's way of begging you to take inventory, to take your uncontrollable response to chaos as a sign that something, everything, needs to change.
That's where I am today — this morning, after I yelled, then cried, then beat myself up for a few hours over a few coffees and words from friends. I'm realizing that our mornings can't keep going this way. Yes, my daughter is only 12. But she is capable of getting up, getting dressed, and getting out the door.
I am, like a dear friend said to me today, doing "so much" for them. I can't be a human alarm clock, a finder of every lost item, a sandwich maker, a morning chef, a driver, and a maid. I can't spend hours running myself ragged before my day even begins, only to end up losing my voice trying to be heard. I can't. I won't.
My daughter wouldn't hug me goodbye today. She wouldn't accept my apology. She only turned around and waved when she got to the door of her school, a kind gesture to let me know "I don't want you to be sad; this is on us both," even though she would never say that in words.
Still, tomorrow everything changes. Tomorrow she will set an alarm on her phone, pack her own lunch, fix her own breakfast, or not eat. And tomorrow I will cross a handful of items off of my list, because I know they are more than I can manage.
Tomorrow we both grow up a little bit.
Tomorrow is about making changes, changes that will help us keep surviving being a home with one parent who has a lot to do and does not always get it right. Who sometimes gets it horribly, horribly wrong and cannot take it back.
Today is for feeling it. The sore throat. The guilt. The sadness. All of the awfulness that's there, not to dwell in for too long, but to teach us how to make sure that the eruption doesn't become a way of life. It's just a breaking point that hopefully, intentionally, spurs change.
