Life Can Be Hard- but It Gets Better

For an assignment in an undergraduate Psychology class a few years ago I showed a picture that represented my life.  It was a family with 5 children all playing and making a mess in their parents’ bedroom while their parents lay in bed.  The instructor asked if the number of children was a true representation.  I answered “yes, there are only 5.”  Everyone laughed.  It’s funny that 5 kids doesn't seem like that many to me now.  There was a time, however, when 5 children seemed nearly too daunting for me to handle.  It wasn’t really the 5 children, life seemed too daunting, I felt like I was drowning.

Illustrated by Val Chadwick Bagley 2014

I’m sharing this story for many reasons.  First, I read recently that far too much of what we share online doesn’t represent real life.  The article claimed we share all the good, fun things with very little of the hard stuff.  This post is about a hard time I went through.  Second, and more importantly, another friend shared an article from lds.org called “The Gift of Being Broken” and while reading it, I felt impressed to blog about this brief but extremely difficult time in my life.  I was broken. Partly because of my own mistakes (taking the easy way out instead of the right way) and partly because that’s life, sometimes it is hard.

My youngest was born in November of 2010, nearly 6 years ago.  We were so excited, he was the first (and only) boy in a sea of girls.   When I was 5 to 6 months pregnant with him my brother-in-law moved in with us.  We have a 4 bedroom house, the 4 girls shared 2 rooms and the 4^th room was being used as an office for Jon (my husband).  We turned it into a bedroom for Jon’s brother.  In November, when the baby came, he slept in the living room in a bassinet.  Yes, I know, most if not all of the great moms I know have their babies sleep in the same room with them.  This doesn’t work for me for many reasons that I’m not going to go into in this post.  The baby slept in the living room.

Three of the four older kids were in school so mornings were rough.  I was getting up early to get them ready for school and to have scripture study before they left.  I didn’t want to get out of the habit of scripture study so we were still doing it every weekday morning.  (As soon as the kids got up, I wheeled the baby down the hall to the older girls' room since they would be gone most of the day.) I was getting about 5 hours of sleep a night broken up: 3 hours sleep, a feeding, and then 2 more hours of sleep before the alarm went off.  Scripture study was, to say the least, interesting.  There were frequent yawns and little understanding of what was read.  My brain worked so poorly in the early morning that I would check my caller ID in the late morning or early afternoon (after taking a nap).  If someone had called I would call them back to ask if I had volunteered for something.  I had to call them back because I could not recall the earlier conversation.  I have never felt so exhausted before or since.

It wasn’t just exhaustion though, that subsided after 11 weeks when the baby started sleeping through the night.  I was cooking for another mouth, sometimes 2 other mouths.  My brother-in-law had started dating a good friend of mine who would come to my house to help me in the afternoon.  She would stay until he came home from work, then often through dinner and most of the evening which made it difficult for me to spend time with my husband and kids.  I started feeling overwhelmed with it all and tried to deal with it the easy way instead of the right way. 

After about a month or so, when my friend would call and ask if I needed any help, I started telling her that I was fine and had it covered.  My brother-in-law felt she was more interested in hanging out with me than him and lost interest.  So I just stopped having her come over.  I should have had a conversation with her about the boundaries I needed, but knowing her like I did, I felt she wouldn’t understand and would just feel hurt.  Not explaining my actions hurt her even more and after a few months our relationship was done.  She was going through some stuff of her own at this time and while I tried my best to be there for her, she felt like I didn't do enough.   Which is true because I was dealing with my own stuff.

During this time I was babysitting for my friend and neighbor.  This proved too much for me and I had to tell her I couldn’t do it anymore.  I couldn’t help my friend, I had lost another friend, and I was drowning in dishes, laundry, and the kids’ messes.  I couldn’t keep up.  After about 3 months of trying to keep everything together and failing miserably, I had a breakdown.  I started crying all of the time, over dumb stuff.  I forgot piano lessons for my oldest, not completely forgot, but dropped her off 10 minutes late and couldn’t stop crying.  My husband couldn’t find a clean pair of socks which set off a crying session.  Just so you know this didn’t continue for more than a week or I would have gone to a doctor.  It lasted long enough that my husband was worried.  I called my mom who suffers from depression, worried that all of a sudden I too was suffering from depression.

The Saturday of the week described above my husband and his brother were planning a shopping trip for motorcycle equipment.  My husband was dressing for the adventure and, again, he couldn’t find socks.  I lost it.  I started crying and couldn’t stop.  He, of course, canceled the excursion with his brother to stay home with me, which made me feel even worse.  I didn’t know why I was crying so much and having such a hard time.  I needed help but didn’t know where to turn, I didn’t know what would really help me.  I could ask for help in my house and get a handle on things there, but then it would just get messy again and I wasn’t sure that would fix things.  I could kick my brother-in-law out and give my son a real bedroom, but it wasn’t about my brother-in-law- he wasn’t the problem.  I didn’t have an answer for what I really needed.

My husband took me out window shopping to get me out of the house, once I gained control of the crying.  While we were out two thoughts came to me.  The first was ‘what would I ask my visiting teachers to do if they called to help me?’  The answer that popped in my head was ‘I would ask them help with my house work,’- not the root of the problem.  Then I thought ‘what would I tell someone who wasn’t a close friend or family member who asked if they could help?’  With this thought, flippant responses came into my head- ‘a million dollars, a house that cleans itself’, and then the epiphany- ‘I just need to stop feeling like I’m letting everyone down.’ 

There it was: my answer, why I was out of control.  I was letting my friends and family down and it was depressing me.  I couldn’t tend for my friend across the street.  I had ruined my relationship with another friend because I wasn’t willing to have a difficult conversation with her.  I wasn’t keeping up with my house or my kids’ activities.  I was sinking and everyone around me was suffering for it. 

This epiphany was so freeing, though.  Once I found the root of the problem I could find solutions.  I realized it is okay to say “no” to things when I have an infant at home and 4 other kids.  This was news to me.  I say “yes” to everything and saying “no” feels worse than doing too much, in my mind anyway.  But I learned I cannot run faster than I have strength.  I learned that it is okay that the house is messy as long as we have clean dishes to eat on and clean clothes to wear, truthfully sometimes we didn’t.  I also did some math and realized I was spending about 5 hours of my day feeding, changing, and playing with the baby.   That means I have 5 fewer hours in the day to do all of the things I used to do.  I realized that I needed to let go of all the things that I think I should be doing and focus on the most important things.  Once I started to focus on my family and saying “no” to less important things the more calm and happy I became. 

Now 5 kids feels like nothing.  I try to say “yes” when I can and don't feel guilty when I have to say "no".  I babysit now and then.  I went back to school when my baby was not quite two which was and is a whole new adventure and learning experience.  I am happy and healthy and grateful for the lessons I learned.  I made mistakes, mistakes that still have to be owned up to and apologies made.  I love my kids dearly, but I am not perfect, I struggle with many weaknesses.  But, here is the truth-life is good because God is good and mistakes and weaknesses can be overcome through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Life can be hard, but it gets better, sometimes it takes a long time, but it will get better.  I  say this in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.