I did not realize until this afternoon how exhausted I was.

Again.

I can’t help but wonder–is exhaustion just the natural by-product of being a mom?

Or maybe the by-product of living in a world where your mental energies are constantly taxed, while your body is allowed to become soft and weak from lack of use?

Is the answer to do less, or do more?

Or do more of certain things, and less of others?

Or to tuck the kids in and then run away to a hotel from 10 pm-7 am every night, to escape bad dreams, illness, wet beds, and snuggly 4 year olds? Oh, the bliss of a long night of deep, uninterrupted sleep! I vaguely remember those days–from when I was a teenager. 😀

Still, I think mental exhaustion is just as much of a factor. One of the downsides of working at home is that it’s really, really hard to delineate between work and home. The two are constantly crossing over, infringing on the other’s territory. And while I don’t think that’s all bad, it does make it hard to just “turn work off” and focus on family.

Another problem that I’ve run into is that since I’m not much of a multi-tasker, I tend to neglect one aspect of my life for days at a time while I focus on the other. So there’s always some crisis ready for me when I turn my attention to either work or home.

I know that there must be a better way to manage this. I’m just trying to figure out how to mold my life into those patterns. It doesn’t come naturally to me, to say the least.