“Okay,” I say. “Just a little bit because Mommy has a lot to do downstairs.”

I snuggle next to my boy, and he talks to me about his day. He tells me about the class clown and the joke he played, and the surprise exam the teacher gave that shocked the students. How someone threw a water bottle off the top of the slide and who had the best snack today. I listen and nod and make noises to reassure him I’m listening.

He keeps talking and my eyelids droop. They are heavy, so heavy, like brocade curtains at the opera, descending when the show is over. I try with all my might to stay awake, there’s so much to do, but sleep threatens to overtake me.

I was always the creative one in my family. I filled notebooks with poetry and doodled fashion designs on every spare piece of paper. I’m an emotional creature who cries easily and loves connecting with people. I couldn’t wait to be a mother.

When my kids were born, each one filled me with a sense of mission. I was going to give these kids the best childhood: a loving, happy home, a mother who is present, willing to get down on the floor and build the highest tower or the longest train tracks. We would bake challah and cookies and spend hours running in the park.

But these days I find myself feeling more like a mathematician. Everything is calculated by how much work it will entail and how much time it will take me.

When I walk through the door each day, my kids smile at me and clamor for my attention. I smile back and ask them about their day and what happened in school, but all the while I’m surveying the scene around me.

The mess of enormous proportions and the dishes stacked in the sink. The homework still undone and the piles of laundry in the basket. No matter how many things I cross off my to-do list, the tasks never seem to dwindle. I’m constantly counting the minutes till bedtime so I can finally have some quiet time and get some work done without the calls of “Mooommmmy!” or “I’m hungry!” or “Owwwww, she hurt me!!”

I’m in survival mode, using every ounce of energy to keep my house running, have supper on the table and clean clothes in the drawers. Nothing is left for the next day when I fall into bed at night, knowing that in a few short hours it will start all over again. Lately I haven’t even had the urge to put my thoughts on paper or to bake an incredible cake for my daughter’s birthday.

And in rare moments of quiet, when I can hear myself think, I wonder if the creative part of me has atrophied, like a muscle that hasn’t been used, if it just fell away into nothingness.

 (Excerpted from Family First, Issue 619)