Unperfected is the topic of the day, and I am going to go OFF on a couple of rants. 

It is officially May and I don’t know about you, but this time of the year is totally debilitating and overwhelming as a mother. Between graduation, spirit weeks, field day, summer sports sign-ups, Mother’s Day, birthdays – it’s total chaos. 

The month of April was also hard for me in regards to my energy and mood. Even with all of my meditation, morning rituals, peaceful walks, coping tools and the overall healthiest choices I’ve ever made, I found myself stuck in one of the lowest moods I’ve ever experienced. I’m a 42-year-old busy working mom, and I want to know – where the HECK has my energy gone?

i am chronically exhausted. the struggle has been REAL. 

Why do we have to experience this in our 40’s? Keeping up with all of the tools is exhausting between our coping skills throughout the day and our appointments with our doctors to check in on our wellness. All of my levels have come out as normal recently, so again, WHY do I feel like poop? Is it hormone related? Is it chemically related? Is it nutrition related? I barely have the energy to explore the options.

Here’s the first thing I want to normalize today – you can be doing everything you can and still feel like crap.

And when we feel this way it is okay to do nothing. We don’t have to have it all figured out. Will I continue to do all of the things that I know are good for me? Absolutely. But anything extra can eff right off right now. It’s okay to wait it out, and if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I will come out of the darkness in time and catch a little sunlight. And maybe that’s when I’ll have the energy to find the solution.

The next thing I need to rant on – why do husbands not go to the doctor? I am just coming off of being sick after the tail-end of my husband and daughter being sick, and I want to talk about how annoying husbands are when they’re sick. As women we have been poked at and prodded since we were 15 years old between general practitioners, OBGYN’s, acupuncturists, therapists, nutritionists – what the eff have we not had? It’s been so long since my husband has gone to the doctor that his provider dropped him!!

I now want to normalize getting to the point where we no longer have empathy and compassion when our husbands don’t do what they’re supposed to do to help themselves.

And the straight up negative thoughts we can have about them in these damn moments. Why is it so hard for you to take care of yourself?? Why do you act like you are literally dying when you’re sick? And naturally, after trying to take care of my daughter and my husband through their sickness, I also get freaking sick. Now that I’m running on fumes and have been carrying this family forward. 

let me give you a glimpse into all that was going on for me this past week – and i know some of you will relate: 

• It’s the last week of April. My daughter has dance and soccer, and a soccer team picture that I messed up the location for. I sent my husband to take her at the wrong time and wrong field, so they didn’t have her name. We’re hoping that they can piece it all together but if not, I’ll have to let that go. 
  

• My son Camden who is a saxophone player in college at CU Boulder had two concerts and I went to both.
  

• It was my husband’s birthday. I made him the cake that his mom used to make for him for his birthday, and I had to put my frustration somewhere to make it seem like I loved him. I know you know how this feels – you know you love your husband but there are those moments where it is hard to pretend because we are running on fumes. 
  

• It was spirit week for my daughter so every day she had to dress differently, and we had exactly zero of the items that we needed. So we ran to Target and busted out mom’s old costumes to make this shit happen. 
  

• Every day I am getting a Sign Up Genius asking me to volunteer for the upcoming end of year events at my daughter’s school.
  

• I’m still having to find out how to feed the family and get the ball rolling and take care of my clients. All while I am now getting sick. 

As you can imagine – my past week was a shit show. And now that we are in the first week of May I am getting prepped for all of the chaos to come this month. Planning for Mother’s Day and my son’s birthday, plus everything mentioned earlier, plus a trip to San Diego in the middle of the month for a celebration of life for my grandmother and my daughter’s first time at Disney. As I sit here processing this with you right now, I’m realizing – no wonder I’m so damn tired! May has always been chaotic and exhausting but it used to come easily. Now I’ve just reached a point where I don’t have the desire anymore. 

So let’s recap what we are normalizing today: 

• Feeling like crap and not knowing why.

• How annoying it is that our husbands don’t go to the doctor and how they react to sickness.

• Not pretending that everything is fine when it isn’t. 
  

how are you feeling at this time of the year, mama? how is your energy and your mood? let’s just take a deep breath, because it is a lot.

But this is where I remind myself that we don’t have to be perfect. We can half-ass some things, we can say no to things, we can sludge through knowing that it is enough. It’s okay. It doesn’t always have to be Instagram and Pinterest worthy. Don’t push yourself pretending that you’re okay. Go easy on yourself because there will be times when setting a low bar is enough. 

May this message give you permission to go slow this week and just let it be.

Take care of yourselves and therefore each other!

xo, brooke jean