There’s been a mixup. Wires are crossed somewhere. I’m sure they are because it just isn’t right, the way things are. Someone else’s karma has popped into my life and is laughing in my face.
Last week I wrote about how I keep our home organised. This week I wrote about the wonderful weekend I had at my sister’s hen party. A few months ago I wrote about my return to work being more manageable that I imagined.
The universe must find me smug. I can almost hear the sneers, “Oooh, look at you, managing your busy life so well. The perfect mother, are you? You think a steam mop and a few Instagram posts can solve your problems, do you?”. Like a nasty boss who piles work onto his more competant employees, the forces that be have conspired against me this week.
Work has been one long round of crisis management, juggling projects and holding telephone conferences in the car at the school gates. At home the dishwasher has broken down and it’ll be two weeks before the repair man can come. There was a note home from school for me to come in for a one-on-one with the teacher regarding concentration. (Bad mother). There was a call from Kindergarten to say the lice have reappeared on our son’s scalp. (Bad mother). The car is acting up.
In the space of a few days I have gone from being the mother who is totally on top of things to being smothered under an ever-increasing pile of chores and worries. Is it karma, the universe or someone with a voodoo doll of me? Whoever it is that is causing all this must be feeling very pround of themselves right now.
Until last night I was too busy dealing with the immediate effects – washing dishes, washing clothes, nit-combing hair, setting up meetings – to think about the bigger picture. Around nine last night I sat down with a glass of wine and reflected on the week.
I found myself resorting, in my mind, to the vocabulary my mother used when I was a child. My head is addled. I’m run off my feet. The child is riddled with nits. The dishwasher is banjaxed. There’s a sea of lice-related washing to deal with. A mountain of ironing. The teacher has my heart scalded with her calls for better concentration from my son and, while I haven’t yet lost my reason or reached by wit’s end, I am in dire need of a cup of tea and five minutes peace.
This morning, with one wash hung out and another put on, I’ve found that peace. Literally just five minutes. And the tea is actually micrwaved coffee that went cold earlier on. Looking out the window now, as the sun shines and I wait for the washing machine to beep, I find myself smiling as this thought enters my head – there’s great drying today by the look of things. I may not be perfect but I am very much a mother.