Sometimes while running errands I will sit in the car for a full 10 minutes before I get out to go into the store.
It serves no real purpose. I’m not finishing an important phone call or scheduling something on my phone. The sound of silence is my comfort. I don’t set out to do it, but I find myself lingering just a few minutes more.
I covet alone time. As an introvert I need it to restore my sense of well-being, but at the same time it’s not something I can carve out time for.
Looking back, I think a lot of what I was feeling was motherhood burnout disguised as overstimulation and exhaustion.
Watching and Waiting: Motherhood Burnout
My latest attempt at taking time for myself was watching a comedy roast special on Netflix. I relaxed and laughed while I ate my charcuterie solo, but the second my girls walked in the door from a playdate, my body snapped to attention.
They didn’t ask anything from me, but I was poised and at the ready for when they did. My finger hovering above the pause button so I wouldn’t miss a second of the hilarity. When my eldest took a pass through the living room the second time, I moved to get up out of my chair.
“No. What are you doing? Why are you getting up?”
“I’m getting myself a drink.”
“What drink do you want? I can do that for you.”
Apparently my husband clued them into my need for rest and peace, so the girls were trying to be helpers. Still, I couldn’t stop my finger from hovering or my brain from questioning if they needed me.
With a fresh drink in hand, courtesy of my oldest daughter, I settled back into the couch and started watching again.
It only took a moment for me to realize, I was no longer resting and watching. I was watching and waiting for the moment they would need me. That constant state of anticipation feels like a quiet form of motherhood burnout I didn’t even recognize in myself at first.
Somehow my motherhood journey has led me to always being hyperaware of everyone around me. It’s like I’m constantly balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to swoop in and help whatever emotional storm my girls might carry home. Even in silence while waiting for the bus to arrive, I find myself running through the scenarios of what I could encounter.
How was their recess? Was the bus driver mean again? Did they get to sit with their friends at lunch?
Waiting and anticipating how I could guide them through their struggle.
Solitude is how I reconnect with myself and recharge but motherhood trained me to stay relationally alert even in when I’m alone.
This is why I find myself sitting in a parking lot alone for 10 minutes before walking into Target to shop.
Maybe you are the type to sit in your car when you come home and take a few minutes to reset before you walk into the chaos.
Or perhaps you stay up late because that is the only time that you have alone to read for enjoyment or scroll.
These moments of being alone are restorative, but yet somehow unfamiliar. A sense of guilt starts to creep in. Maybe that’s part of why motherhood burnout can feel so invisible while you’re living inside it.
I should be quick in the store so no one misses me too much while I’m gone.
I should go to sleep now or I won’t be worth anything for anyone tomorrow.
I should go inside when I get home, what kind of monster doesn’t immediately want to see their family after being away from them all day.
It has taken me a long time to understand that both of these things can be true. I can want to get home quickly so no one misses me, but I can also restore myself with ten quiet minutes alone in a parking lot before doing my errands.
I can love my family deeply and still need silence sometimes.
Maybe protecting those quiet moments is part of how I keep from losing myself in motherhood completely (read more about losing yourself in motherhood).
Maybe that doesn’t make me unavailable.
Maybe it just makes me human.
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