I'm Feeling Overwhelmed

This week, I found myself sitting in my car on the way to work, on Route 2, in stopped traffic, crying to my husband on the phone, with a wailing Annabelle in the back seat. It was, by all accounts, not one of my best moments.

You see, my commute to work, from Cambridge to Waltham, is 11.9 miles. Google Maps helpfully tells me this should take me 20 minutes. However, in reality, in winter, in Massachusetts, with a foot of badly plowed snow on the ground and hundreds of Masshole drivers, this commute takes me 3 times that.

On this morning, I sit, white knuckled, as I miss stoplight after stoplight. And bleary-eyed, I try to concentrate on the radio news as Belle drops her binky for the 87th time and starts to fuss. The fussing slowly builds to a low wail. Then, while nearing the end of my commute and trying to merge onto 128 while at the same time aggressively trying to prevent cars from jumping the long line of traffic and merging INTO me, Belle starts to scream. Binky is no longer in reach. I am already late for work and I know I still have 30 minutes of traffic ahead of me. Belle is inconsolable. NPR is giving me the rundown of the most depressing things that have happened in the world today.

It is at this point that I do the only thing I can think to do. I call my husband.

Mike answers with fear in his voice, because clearly if I am calling him at this hour something is gravely wrong.

“What it is it?” he asks.

“I can’t do it. I can’t do this. This commute. She’s crying. I can’t listen to this anymore. This isn’t going to work.”

And as her shrieks pick up from the back seat, I find myself starting to cry. My daughter and I are having a meltdown. Together, in this small car, in traffic, we are collectively losing it. And my poor husband, on his own commute to work, is listening to two blubbering ladies blubber on.

He asks what he can do to help (nothing). He sympathizes. He assures us things will be ok.

And he is right. Things will be ok. And by the time I make it to work, they are. But these moments, these meltdowns, they seem to happen a lot. So often, in fact, that Mike and I have put a word to them. When they happen, we just look at each other and say, “I’m feeling overwhelmed.” And immediately, we know what this means.

Because at the time I was sitting on Route 2, I was feeling overwhelmed by Belle’s crying and the day-to-day minutia of keeping another human alive. By the frequent feedings and diaper changes and too-short naps and the complicated outfits and the endless pumping sessions. By daycare drop-offs, and developmental milestones, and sleep training. Overwhelmed with the stuff, with the toys and tiny clothes and Rock and Plays and Jumparoos and millions of other things exploding out of our 700 square foot apartment, which is now, never, ever, even for a split second, clean. I’m overwhelmed by the heavy diaper bags and smelly bottle bags and dowdy breast pump bags that I try to juggle while also carrying Belle in her bulky car seat up and down stairs and through doors. By pacifiers constantly falling out of smiling mouths. By tiny bibs soaked in an endless stream of baby drool.

I am overwhelmed by my job, and with the daily commutes and deadlines and details and the challenging and rewarding work I get to do each day. I am overwhelmed by the generosity of my colleagues who picked up the slack when I took 16 weeks off from work to fall in love with my daughter and who still pick up the slack when my overtaxed brain starts to sputter.

I am overwhelmed with the idea that I am tasked with trying to keep another person – my husband – happy when I can barely scrape myself off the couch after Belle goes to bed. And I am overwhelmed with joy when I see Mike and Annabelle together and I realize what an incredible father he is to Annabelle, and partner he is to me. And I am just plain overwhelmed when I think of how lucky we are to have gotten pregnant and have delivered a healthy baby girl. That Mike and I get to wake up each morning with more happiness in our lives than we could have ever imagined.

That morning, and every morning, I was feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed by love for Annabelle, my perfect, amazing daughter who was crying her face off in the back seat of my car.

This new life of mine, this life of working mother and wife, is overwhelming. And 99% of the time I feel happier than I have in my entire life. But that 1%. Man, those times are tough. At those times, I really do feel like it is all too much. But in reality, I should be thankful for those moments. Because they are just an indication of how full my life has become. And I wouldn't change a thing.