My mind is clouded. My brain is racing. I have knots in my tummy. I feel guilty. Angry. Sad. Desperately disillusioned and disappointed. 

It’s 6.30 am and I need to get out of bed and get the kids up and get them to school and get back to my desk to work and do a supermarket shop and collect the kids and make the dinner and tidy up and bring them to their activities and put on a wash and change the beds and make a work call and a zoom social call and bring the dog for a walk and - oh lords, the hot water still isn’t working - I must call the plumber (again) and book a session with my therapist and buy more masks for the kids for school (where do those masks go?!?) and…

Deep breaths. 

One step at a time. 

My dad used to say: ‘do what’s in front of you’.

I put on my dressing gown and go downstairs, make a cup of tea and bring it into the back garden. Just twenty seconds breathing in the air, the dog at my feet, sipping my tea. Fighting back the tears. Fighting back this feeling of dread. What am I dreading? I don’t even know. But it sure is going to be one of those days and it’s not even 7am yet.

We all have them. The days when we push ourselves like treacle to get through each hour. Aiming for bedtime. That’s when we can escape the day, the disappointment, the dread. A few stolen moments letting the tears flow. 

For me, the tears can come in the car. I drop the kids off at school and I let the dog out to do a wee and my mantra is: ‘you can cry once you’re on the road again, you’re okay, you can do this, you’re okay…’

Deep breaths.

Do what’s in front of me. 

Back in the car. On the drive home to work, I turn the dial on the radio. No more Covid talk. I can’t listen to it this morning. Put on a song. Find something uplifting. Maybe I won’t cry this morning? Maybe I will sing instead?

Oh I love this station. Always an 80s classic to be heard. It’s Cyndi Lauper singing ‘True colours’ and I’m singing along. Loudly. Badly. Making up my own lyrics. Some of them, naughty. No, they are actually rude. Irreverent. Who cares? No one can hear. Just me and the dog. And Cyndi. 

I pull up at traffic lights. A man looks over from the car beside me. I’m half crying. Half laughing. Half singing. Half cursing. He looks a little nervous or is he amused? Maybe both. I don’t care. This is my space.

If I can sing and curse and feel alive, I’m doing okay. 

It’s 8.30 am and I will get through today. 

I’ll do what’s in front of me. 

Mind yourselves out there, my Moodscope friends. Especially when it’s one of those days…

Salt Water Mum

A Moodscope member.