Honestly, 2022 is handling me, and it is not handling me nicely. I am as fragile as a piece of fine china. I am cracked, broken and tired. I have this horrible feeling that there is no help in sight. I am a teacher, a parent of two children (ages 6 and 3), a wife, a daughter of older parents and in debt up to my eyeballs. I have always been the head of my household. I run the show. All of it: the housework, finances, appointments, activities, shopping — everything.
My spouse works and gets to come home and “fix things,” and do whatever he wants. He grew up with traditional gender roles and it has been hard to break these learned views of women. This year, he’s trying to understand that I can’t do it all, but I feel men don’t know how to realize that the load is unequal. I feel like I am working my butt off and it is invisible.
At school, we’re short-staffed and the kids are completely off the handle. Coming home, I try to keep an organized chaos. I go to bed exhausted every night. I feel like my life’s a tornado and I’m just happy I can touch the ground every once in a while.
I’m being more forgetful these days, which I’m normally not. Working mothers have 15,000 tabs open. Your computer starts to slow down sometimes. I’ve had so many tabs open for so long that the processing speed is slowing down.
Ten years ago, I worked three jobs and we bought a condo. I have been paving our way financially and socially ever since. In 2014, we needed IVF assistance to have children and even though I knew I wasn’t the issue, I had to endure a year of horrible tests. But I wouldn’t have my beautiful children without it. As an IVF mom, I am heartbroken about the Roe overturning. When do men ever have to worry about their reproductive rights? Men should have to have vasectomies if women can’t have abortions. The United States is falling apart.
