My husband tested positive for Covid this morning, which immediately brought me back to this time exactly 4 years ago, when he tested positive the first time.
Those were the days when we were still cycling through lockdowns and we were all at home… so him being sick meant that I was Doing It All:
All the childcare - including constant battles with my children to get off video games and do their online schooling…
The endless meal prep, cooking, cleaning, laundry and other household tasks…
Full work days of coaching calls and meetings…
Bringing my husband tea, meals, medications and boxes of Kleenex…
Washing or sanitizing my hands every 2 minutes (and they were so red and sore from all that soap drying them out!)…
Wiping down all the surfaces in the house…
All the Christmas prep, shopping and card mailing…
Every night I’d collapse in bed, utterly exhausted, only to bolt awake in a panic at 2 am because I’d forgotten to deal with that d$#@ Elf On A Shelf (which we’d started for the first time a few days earlier)… then be woken up again at 3am and 4am by my yowling cat… and then I’d scrape myself out of bed at 5:30am to do the coaching calls with my UK colleague for my training course.
Full fire-hose living.
I remember lamenting (sobbing?) to my coaching partner at the time: "I have to look after EVERYONE! But who looks after ME?!?!"
And in the silence after that question, the answer came to me, first with a wave of despair -
I do. I have to look after myself.
- and then, surprisingly, relief:
I GET to look after myself.
After all, I already know EXACTLY what I wanted and needed, so there was no need to worry about trying to communicate with myself about how I'm feeling and what I need. No worry of miscommunication, good intentions falling flat, or not being heard.
I could move on right away to taking action. Asking for help. Accepting offers of help. Saying No to things.
Stealing moments to myself to close my eyes, sit in stillness, and just breathe.
There was something oddly liberating about this - even within the larger added layer of “another person for me to look after.”
I am the absolute best person for the job.