Can I be honest with you? I’m not OK.

I cried every single day last week.

I cried because my daughter was in the middle of a 7-year-old meltdown. I cried because I screamed at my toddler in frustration. I cried because I broke my toe walking down the stairs…who breaks their toe?!?

How many of us thought that we’d be entering month 8 of this “new normal”? In the early days, we were in survival mode, but I never thought I would still be trying to stay afloat several months down the road. The burnout is REAL.

There are days where it feels like life is unraveling into a deep black hole, with no end in sight.

And I think a lot of us are in the same boat.

Some days I have it together. I pat myself on the back when the kids are bathed, when I have time to make healthy meals and when the house seems in order.

But to be honest, most days I feel like I’m falling apart.

Shove a corn dog in the microwave, let my child play for hours on the iPad. At this point, I don’t care…as long as they give me 5 minutes of silence.

There is no down time when you are juggling kids, remote learning, work and why not add a pandemic puppy to the mix! Even when I should be sleeping, I find myself wide awake making mental notes of all I need to do when daylight arrives.

Survive the day is my motto, then rinse and repeat.

Here’s the thing—None of us signed up for this. Our lives were turned upside down in the middle of March. I suddenly became a working mom who is also a stay at home mom. Maybe I was optimistic, maybe I was naïve, but I never expected life to still be like this 7+ months later.

As moms, we’re excellent at making it look easy, at smiling when life may be chaos around us.

But remember this: It’s OK to not be OK right now. It’s OK to wave the white flag, to call it a day and have a “woe is me” moment. And it’s OK to ask for help.

Life is messy these days. The only thing we can do is take it one day at a time.

A version of this essay originally appeared here.

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