And I catch myself doing what I swore I wouldn’t do. Dissociating into my phone. Scrolling. Numbing. Holding the damn thing so tight my hand hurts because it’s the only place my brain can go where no one is asking me for anything.
My brain is in pure survival mode.
And somewhere in the middle of all of this, we’re supposed to be thinking about “self care.”
Let me tell you what self care looks like in this season.
It looks like taking a long shower… not because I’m romanticizing my routine, but because my brain is short circuiting. Because when I finally get alone in my tiny bathroom, it feels like I’m running Windows 95 trying to edit a full-length movie. The system is overloaded. The hardware cannot keep up with the input.
And the input is relentless.
You Can Have It All. Just Not Right Now.
I heard Michelle Obama say something recently that hit me straight in the chest.
You can have it all. Just not at the same time.
Michelle Obama - You Can't Have It All Right Now
And I wanted to argue with it. Because I built a life that was supposed to hold all of it. The business. The flexibility. The kids. The time. The ability to be present and productive.
I engineered this. And now I’m in it, looking around like… oh. Oh this is what “all of it” actually feels like.
Because this version of life doesn’t come with six pack abs. It doesn’t come with uninterrupted work blocks. It doesn’t come with long workouts and clean eating and a calm nervous system.
Right now, I’m chubby. I don’t love my body. I don’t love the cellulite. I don’t love the random stress acne showing up in places I didn’t even know acne could show up. I get out of breath doing basic things like hauling laundry upstairs.
And you know what? I don’t have the energy to fix it.
That’s the part no one wants to say out loud.
This Is Not a Glow-Up Season. This Is an Endurance Season.
I had my twenties. I got to see what my body could do. I ran half marathons. I was the strongest I’d ever been. The leanest I’d ever been. I got to build that relationship with myself.
And now I watch people like Ilona Maher and I love her for it. She’s strong. She eats. She lives in her body in a way that feels honest. She’s not chasing some fragile aesthetic. She’s building strength.
Ilona Maher - You Really Gotta Try This
And I’m like… yes. That.
But also… not right now.
Right now my body is not optimized for performance or aesthetics. It’s optimized for survival. For endurance. For carrying the weight of my life as it exists today.
And endurance is not sexy. It’s not Instagrammable. It’s just effective.
Meanwhile, My Kids Are Absolute Chaos Monsters
Let’s talk about the kids.
I love them. I would die for them. I want to eat their faces off they’re so cute.
And also… they’re assholes.
They’re selfish. They scream. They hit. One of them gave me a bloody nose by scratching the inside of my nostril with their tiny razor blade fingernails. I didn’t even know that was possible.
They are one. This is their job. I know that.
But knowing that intellectually does not make it less overstimulating when all three of them are losing their minds at the same time and I can feel my own brain starting to shut down.
I had a babysitter with me all day recently. Full coverage. Help. Support.
And it still felt like torture being with all of my children at the same time.
That’s the level we’re operating at right now.
I Built a Life to Be With My Kids… and Sometimes I Don’t Want to Be With My Kids
This is the part that feels illegal to say out loud.
I built this life on purpose.
I left stability. I took risks. I structured everything so I could have time with my family. So I wouldn’t be stuck in an office missing their childhood.
And now I have the time.
And some days, all I want to do is be at the office.
I want to sit at my desk, drink my coffee while it’s still hot, knock out my to do list, make money, film content, network, use my brain in a way that doesn’t involve solving why someone is screaming.
I want to go sit at a bar with my husband, drink overpriced wine, and eat cheese that costs 400% more than it should.
We got to do that recently. Just a few hours. My mother-in-law (plus the babysitter) had the boys, my daughter was at school, and we sat there like normal adults.
We talked about business. We talked about my stupid car that’s acting up. He picked a great restaurant like he always does. He fed me. And I felt taken care of in a way that I didn’t even realize I’d been missing.
It felt like when we were dating.
It felt like us.
And then we went back to reality.
My Brain Will Not Shut Off (And That’s Its Own Kind of Madness)
Here’s the other layer.
Even in the middle of all this chaos… my brain is still firing.
I had a full business networking idea the other day. Like a good one. Hosting “office hours” at different cafes in the area, creating an Eventbrite, talking with fellow business owners about their pain points, turning those interactions into content and consulting opportunities.
It was solid. And then I had to tell myself to shut the fuck up.
Not because it wasn’t a good idea. But because I do not have the capacity to execute it right now without breaking something else.
This is my version of lifestyle creep. Not money. Not things. Opportunity creep.
Every time I get a sliver of margin, I try to fill it with something that’s been sitting in the back of my brain for the last decade.
And I cannot stop myself. It's somewhere between a character flaw and a feature.
And if I don’t actively manage it, I will run myself straight into the ground.
You Don’t Need Better Systems. You Need to Regulate Yourself
Before I had twins, another twin mom gave me the best advice I didn’t understand at the time.
“Get used to crying.”
I'm still unclear if she meant the kids or me. But here’s what I’ve learned.
You cannot fix everything. Sometimes your kids are just going to cry. Sometimes you don’t know why. Sometimes it’s something stupid like they’re cold and you don’t figure it out for 15 minutes and then you want to scream because are you kidding me, that’s all it was?
Sometimes they’re teething. Sometimes they’re sick. Sometimes they’re hungry. Sometimes they just need a bottle even though someone somewhere told you they shouldn’t.
And sometimes the move is not to fix it immediately. Sometimes the move is to step away. Put in noise cancelling headphones. Take ten minutes in the bathroom. Let them cry safely in another room while you regulate yourself.
Because if you are not okay, nothing else is going to be okay. Use the tools that work. I don’t care what a pediatrician says in theory. If a pacifier keeps you sane, use it. If a bottle buys you peace, use it.
Your sanity is part of the system.
Work on Your Own Shit. Seriously.
This is the part people avoid. All of your unresolved baggage? It’s coming with you.
Your childhood stuff. Your relationship with your parents. Your anger. Your control issues. Your anxiety. Your triggers.
All of it.
And it will come out when you are at your most depleted. At 3 AM. Covered in spit up. Haven’t showered. Haven’t slept. And nothing is working. It will bubble up like pus out of a zit. It is not subtle.
No product fixes that.
No hack fixes that.
Get a therapist. Do the work. Learn how to regulate yourself.
Because if you don’t, your kids will force you to.
You Are Not Failing. You Are In a Season.
Here’s what I keep coming back to.
This is a season.
And it’s not that it’s going to get easier. It’s going to get different.
Because I know myself. As soon as something slows down, I will fill it with something else. Another business idea. Another project. Another layer.
That’s who I am.
But this specific version of chaos? This specific version of my kids? This exact combination of who they are and who I am right now? This is temporary.
And if I spend all of it hating myself for what I’m not doing, what I don’t look like, what I don’t have the capacity for…
I will miss it.
The Ride Is the Point
You have no control.
None.
You are along for the ride.
And that’s the point.
You chose this. Not because it would be easy, but because it would be meaningful. Because you wanted this experience. Even the hard parts.
Especially the hard parts.
This is not the detour. This is not the thing you have to get through to get to the good part.
This is it.
And one day, these tiny, screaming, chaotic humans are going to be full adults sitting across from you, talking about their lives, their ideas, the people they’ve become.
And you’re going to realize you got to watch that happen in real time.
That you built that.
That all of this… the exhaustion, the overstimulation, the absolute madness of it…
It meant something.
So in the middle of the chaos, when they’re not screaming for just a second… Look at their faces. Memorize them. Because they will look different tomorrow. And whether you like it or not… You’re going to miss this.
But that is the whole point.