Last night I cried. I cried out of exhaustion. Out of fear and worry. I cried through the tiredness and uncertainty.

From the moment this all started, we were bombarded with ideas of using this time to organize, purge, start home projects, lose the weight, meditate more. Be more holistic, start our own business, you name it - the possibilities were endless.

Except they aren't endless. For so many, this is more like treading water. Our bones are tired and our emotions, high.

I, for one, am not crushing it. I'm maintaining and honestly I'm doing a sub-par job at even doing that. Everywhere I look I'm reminded of all the areas I'm not adding up.

Motherhood
School work
Laundry
Work
Wife
Health

and at the bottom of that list? My sanity.

Can we be real here for a second? This isn't just parenting. This isn't just working from home or just teaching your children while managing your family, home, finances and everything else that goes along with it. This is far from a cake walk.

This is mothering through a pandemic.

And it's not normal. There's no section I can flip to in a mom manual that tells me step by step instructions on how to navigate through this; how to function in society as a mom trying to comfort her children and her family, while simultaneously cooking meals, cleaning, trying to be a good co-worker, wife, daughter, friend, and mother without breaking down herself.

Quite honestly, I'm exhausted both mentally and physically. I'm tired of beating myself up over things I can't control; of holding myself to the standards of ten people when in fact, I'm ONE.

This isn't the 1950's. It's OK if you're not channeling your inner Betty Crocker, whipping up homemade bread for the family. If homeschooling looks less like a rainbow of perfectly color coordinated time slots and more like coloring on the floor while on a conference call.

It's OK, if the best you could manage was serving up frozen chicken nuggets again. If you made chocolate chip cookies for the eighth time knowing full well none of your pants fit, but it makes you feel better. If your zoom call got interrupted by a three foot Iron Man blasting your co-workers in the background.

There's no right way to do this.

We all have enough on our plates, stop adding guilt to the mix. This isn't a time for competition or comparison. Do what works for you. When this is all over, there is no standard or gold star that you can place on a chart for world's best pandemic mom, trust me.

Some days you'll get it right. The kids will listen and your online grocery order will have ALL of your items. You'll feel good about things; like you have a handle on them. While other days the wheels will fall off. You'll count down the hours til bedtime and pray for more patience tomorrow.

Cut yourself some slack. These aren't normal times.

You're doing the best you can, sis, and so am I.