On Being Tired is a series of posts exploring what it means to be tired as a parent.

Make sure to catch the first few posts in the series: 

Welcome to the Jungle, 

New Mom Tired, 

and Get Out of the Boat.

1. Scatterbrained Tired

hi yeah so i was wondering do i have to fill this out here or can i take it home and maybe bring it back tomorrow because i am not sure what this is actually

Imagine your brain is a library, a big, old, hushed one - the kind with a domed ceiling and streaming light and smooth, scarred tables, and rows and rows of books. This is your entire life. There are books with titles like "Middle School Halloween Dance," and "What I Remember From Pre-Calculus," and "All The Zip Codes Where I Have Ever Lived" and "Times Ryan Was Wrong And I Was Nice About It," and a pamphlet called "Fun Facts about British Parliament" and a six-volume series of "Boyz II Men, Michael Jackson, The Four Seasons, and Paul Simon: The Complete Lyrics to Everything."

You go to the volume entitled "Location of Keys," and when you open it, not only are the keys not there, but the book itself is hollow, one of those plastic faux-books that realtors use to make the study in the new condo look lived-in. You look down the shelf and start to panic.

You check the books:
"Tom Cruise Complete Filmography" - No, I know this. He was in the one from the 80's where he was in his underwear on the floor... and the one in the future, or there might have been a couple in the future... and the one where he was a super agent guy... nope, EMPTY.

"Best Friend's Sister's Name" - Sssssssssssssssssss............arah? No. EMPTY.

"Current Date" - June? No, January. It's January, right? It's a J month. Check outside to see if it's winter. EMPTY.

"How To Get Home From The Grocery Store." And where did I park? Or... did I walk? EMPTY.

The library, once filled with the knowledge of an entire complex, well-examined life, now holds nothing more than boxes of air. It looks real, but the books clatter to the floor, useless, a sham, a mess.

You look up at the domed ceiling, see dust suspended in the beams of light.

You think, "what in the literal fuck has happened to me?"

Nothing, girl. You're just Scatterbrained Tired.




All the best existential nihilist philosophers did their best work right after having new babies.
LOOK IT UP.

(Do not look it up.)

But it would make sense if it were true. There comes a point in every Tired Mother's life when she thinks, "this is meaningless. Nothing matters. I could stay right here on this couch all day. In fact, I think I will."

Welcome to Dead Inside Tired.

That's when you stop showering.
That's when you wear sunglasses all the time.
That's when you sit in front of your phone and play Candy Crush, and you half-hear, but do not look up to watch the baby squeal, coo, and babble in his jumperoo.
That's when you say, occasionally, in an oddly robotic voice, "are you having fun, little man."

It's a hard feeling to describe if you've never been Dead Inside Tired.

You're not sad, or mad. You're just.. quiet. You're just a statue, one you imagine in a public housing lobby somewhere in the Czech Republic, a heavy, still form sitting on cracked linoleum, next to a plaque that reads, "Shell."

You're checked out.
You're done.
You can't summon the energy to give a single fuck.

Dead Inside Tired is a rough one. But on the upside, it has a short shelf life. You can only be Dead Inside Tired for so long before you either fall asleep or move into the next phase.

And for me, that next phase is usually...

you had to be there but trust me it wasn't crazy it wasn't that crazy and it had been too long since anyone had dusted all the lightbulbs at the grocery store okay now that i'm thinking about it it was definitely very crazy

Manic Joy Tired is fun while it lasts, but it only lasts as long as the coffee. At least you get a clean sink out of the deal... and as you get better acquainted with your own personal roller-coaster, you'll figure out how long you can ride this period of happiness and productivity, and how you can make sure that you get the most important things done while you have the give-a-fuckitude to do them.




There doesn't need to be a reason. I've never suffered from depression but I do have some pretty high-octane anxiety that is a natural byproduct of being what one therapist called "lightly manic." She seemed to be pretty happy with the diagnosis, since she went on to tell me that most successful people are "lightly manic." Which I thought was pretty cute. Like, crazy manic, but light! With a lime wedge! And success! I'll take it, doc. Where do I sign?

But if I don't get enough sleep, my brain doesn't remember how to be still, and then if I don't give my brain a project (like a crusty stovetop, or, I don't know, a blog) then my brain will find its own problem to chew on. Fueled by too much coffee and tethered only by frail, spindly roots, my brain plunges madly into the dark places where Mufasa told Simba he must never go. This is where you'll find me, when I'm Panic Tired, thinking about:

1. My children dying
2. Me getting cancer
3. Ryan leaving us
4. Earthquakes, tsunamis, flash floods, zombie apocalypse, Ebola, North Korea - all that good global nightmare stuff.
5. Rats & child molesters (This is a fascinating pairing that I'll explore in more detail on my own time.)

The thing about Panic Tired is that if you call someone to explain why you're panicking, the first response is usually something like, "that's not something you need to be afraid of right now," or "but that's not what's happening right now," or simply, "you're okay."

That's true, I am! Except I am NOT.

Panic Tired doesn't care what the world actually is - it only cares what it could be, if Michael Bay were directing it based on a screenplay co-written by Jodi Picault and Cormac McCarthy.