I lost it today.

That is the truth. But, the more I sit and think and mull it over, the more I know I didn’t lose it today. I simply lost another piece of me. I will never be the same after today. The thing is, it is nothing that happened today, but more a culmination of everything over the last several months.

It is all happening so fast. The past 8 months, my life, just like everyone else’s has been flipped upside down. I’m so overwhelmed. I am truly an introvert. In every aspect of the word. I only have so many words a day I can speak before I hit exhaustion. I need time to myself. I draw my strength from the time I spend alone. I have not been alone since March.

I am running on fumes. I had the best respite before Covid. Now, its not safe to let anyone into the house for fear they could expose one of the boys. Not only that, but the care needs of our boys have changed so much in the last year that there are very few, if any people that could come in and care for them.

I’m grieving. I haven’t had time to do so. I am sad that my son is not walking anymore. It hit me hard today because he didn’t want to go out and play in the snow. It’s just not the same for him anymore. I love that he has his chair and we are finally getting the house so that he can move freely around without hitting anything. I am grateful because he seems happier. But I have to admit that everytime I look at the dining room table and see the one chair missing it punches me in the stomach. We should not have had to remove one to make a space for his chair. He’s 11 years old, he should still be walking.

I’m so damn mad. My son is losing strength. He can’t bend over, he can’t pick anything up off the ground, he can’t go up steps, he gets tired more and more easily and I see him losing pieces of who he is, too. Anxiety has wreaked havoc on him for years now. His friends are gone. He is lonely and sad. I so damn mad that losing his muscles isn’t enough, but God has given him so much more than that to carry. I want to take it all for him. I can help him stop walking, I can be his legs and I can carry his things, but I can’t take away this hurt he is experiencing. It’s worse than anything I’ve experienced in parenting so far.

Many of these hard moments over the past few months have been met with no grace from me. I’m so cranky. I’m short. I don’t like me in the midst of all of this. Where are the showers of grace I’ve been praying for?

I feel very isolated and alone. I had a few refuges before, but now because of the level of safety we need to maintain for our boy’s health, I don’t go anywhere where masks are not worn or social distancing can’t be observed. I also feel so mad at myself because I know I can’t feel that way when our community has given us a new van and showed up at every fundraiser. The ceiling lift we are working on will be paid in complete by our community of friends and family.

My dear husband. He just holds me and says it’s perfectly okay to feel this way. That the constant barrage of things stacking on top of each other are just hitting me in the real feels. It is so true, there is a physical pain in my chest, like it’s been beaten.

I spent the day stressed, then grateful, then heartbroken and sad, I’ve cried and then dried my eyes and went to appointments and then cried and made supper. Now, I’m in my room letting my husband be a single parent and writing because it is one of the few things that gives me peace. I’m over the people judging me for sharing these vulnerable, messy, hurting parts of me. I’m not perfect; I’m just a mom that’s been given a tough ask trying to do my best. I am so absolutely human and I am feeling those human failings so intimately today. Today has changed me. I lost a piece of me today.

I will leave you with these quotes. These quotes that in the midst of losing my piece today, won’t leave me.

“Every time the anxiety builds, God whispers: I have a plan.” -Lauren Fortenberry

I can only hope that the little piece I lost today is his plan. That it is a piece I don’t need anymore, than He will replace it with something better, something more like him.

“Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.” John 15:4

Here I am, hurting and mad, but remaining.