The Chance Chatter of Chameleons

4:59 this morning (a Saturday morning mind you, the day I don’t have an alarm set to get up at 4:45) I hear the tv in the living room. It was my favorite YouTube gamer (NOT).  I don’t especially like hearing his annoying voice during the day, at 4:59 this morning it was time to level up on my kids. I growled at poor Boscoe to “stay on his bed” in hopes of crawling back into mine after turning off the tv and threatening the kids with no electronics if they don’t go back to bed. I did threaten and I did crawl back into bed, only to get up 45 minutes later because I couldn’t fall back to sleep. Walk the dog, brew a cup of coffee, and sit down to savor those glorious hot drops of delicious black magic that will save my children’s lives this Saturday. About two minutes later, my Benny B. wants to know when I will be finished so I can get them breakfast. His eagerness for breakfast this morning was the fulfillment of a promise that I buy them McDonalds hash browns and flapjacks if their behavior reports all week from school were good. I bribe my kids, I’m not ashamed to say. Unabashedly not ashamed to bribe them into making my life easier.

7:10 this morning I am in my jammies, with a heavy coat on driving to McDonalds to get their breakfasts. The roads seemed unusually empty, but what do I know, I haven’t driven anywhere at 7:10 any morning since COVID first shut us down in 2020. It was a strange feeling being out that early. I felt guilty, almost like I was doing something wrong. I realized as I was driving to McDonalds, that I don’t know what normal is anymore. Each day blends into the next. The only differentiator is whether I must get the kids on the bus or not. I wear leggings and a hoody if it’s cold, or leggings and a t-shirt if its warm. I don’t put on makeup, I don’t dry my hair (if I wash it, that is always the debate, to wash or not). All my days are the same, to include work. I often work on Saturdays and Sundays because my office is right off my living room. Since COVID there is now no separation between work me, mom me, wife me, or the me that I have yet to figure out. It feels like that since the separation has been removed, I don’t exist.

I KNOW I exist; I mean if I didn’t how would everything get done? I make my bed, shower, start the laundry, do more laundry, clean up the kitchen, water the plants, write a paper, take the kids for a run (Benny B wants to bring a backpack next time with a drink and a snack; that half mile was just too much for his 8 year old self), get lunches, clean paintbrushes for the girls, clean up their painting mess, do more laundry, walk the dog, eat my lunch while scheduling a pine straw delivery, pour a beer and write a history paper, do more laundry, empty the dishwasher, make dinner, clean up the kitchen, walk the dog, get the kids desert and sit down finally to snuggle and watch tv with them before bed. See, if I didn’t exist the life in my house would have gone to absolute shit today. So, I DO exist. The question is, does anyone else know I exist? It goes back to the age-old question, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? If I am busy and take care of everyone, but no one sees me do I exist?

I realize as I sip my wine, that I used to treasure the weekends. Weekends were a chance to be home and spend time with my kids. I used to look forward to Monday’s because I treasured my time with other professionals outside of the house. Going to work validated my existence. I welcomed the opportunity to separate myself from the mom me, the wife me. Now it all runs together. While working remote allows me more flexibility to be mom, it removed the separation that allowed me to reset to be a better mom. All day, the four words that have continuously run through my head are “I made my bed”. Today, the one thing I did for me, only for me was make my bed. That one simple act helped me feel like my life had order. That the day didn’t run into the night and the night into morning.  No one will come to the house and see it, no one will care that my bed is made. No one may see me today, there may not be any visual eye contact with anyone outside of the house, but that is the way with chameleons. Find the “bed” and make it because it makes you feel like your life is in order.