on being invisible.

If we’re doing our jobs right, we moms are invisible.

Not totally, of course. We are HERE, in the trenches, side-by-side with our kids and our partners, every damn moment, whether physically or emotionally. But if we’re doing it right, you won’t notice us doing it. We are magicians, using sleight of hand to keep stressors out of sight, sharp objects out of reach, dinner on the table and the doctor appointments booked. You know we’re here, but we’re ghosts without needs -- we cry in the shower, while you sleep. We make excuses to run to the store for milk, to clean the upstairs closet, to run the trash outside -- anything to carve out space for us to exhale or burst into tears, just for a moment.

Sometimes we lie in bed and check in with ourselves like we’re always being told to do. We sweep our awareness down our bodies, swirling it through our headspace, trying to get a read on how we’re doing. Really. We can’t leave it up to others to ask, and we know it. We have to check in with ourselves. Take care of ourselves. We try desperately to give ourselves the same care we give our families, but each day the well seems to run dry long before it’s even our turn for a drink. The little ones get hydrated first, followed by our partners. On good days we are next in line, and on bad days we keep waving ahead our neighbors. Our co-workers. Our parents. Our friends. We let them drink from our wells because we love them. But the well runs dry. And sometimes, as we reward ourselves in those precious three minutes before falling asleep, we check in with ourselves and find that we are not only thirsty but parched.

Everyone says we work too hard. That we’ll make ourselves sick. It’s a sweet thought, and we think about it often. Sometimes even through tears, as we softly rock our teething babies to sleep, the glowing green alarm clock taunting us as it gets closer and closer to morning. Sometimes as we’re cutting up fruit for breakfast, while a toddler sobs at our feet with impatience and we stare longingly at the Keurig and wonder how far away from that first, hot cup of coffee we are. And sometimes while we sit at our work computers, stuck inside on bright sunny days, while someone else is off enjoying time with our kids. Then, especially, do we think about how we work too hard. That this is all too much and too hard. But we have mouths to feed and mortgages to pay and credit card bills to pay off. We simply have work to do. There is always work to do.

So why can’t we just enjoy it? We watch our husbands wake from leisurely weeknight couch naps, with their sleepy grins and soft stretches, oblivious to the laundry that needs to be folded, the lunches that need to be made, the kitchen that needs to be scrubbed down. We’ve tried to nap before, too, but we wake in panic -- heart racing, mind cloudy, hands fumbling with our iPhones as we frantically try and find out what time it is. How much time we’ve wasted, how much time is left to salvage. We watch our partners dig into a good book on a Sunday afternoon, pausing at some point to ask what we’d like to do today, and (though we’re trying to be nicer) we maniacally laugh in their faces. What would we like to do?! We glance at our to-do lists, knowing that we barely have time to accomplish a third, knowing that likes are an effing daydream that we don’t have time for. Well, you really should try and relax, they say to us, shrugging and flipping to the next page. As if it is that simple. As if relaxation is a choice we all have at any given moment, like choosing whether we want a coffee or a tea.

We try. We do. Over and over and over again. But the effort it takes to slow down and the effort it takes to gain momentum again afterward is too great. We’re not sprinters. We are marathon runners, and if we stop or lose focus, it all falls apart. The doctor’s appointments don’t get made. The dishwasher doesn’t get emptied. The dinners don’t get cooked. The emails don’t get answered. This is not college when we could sleep through our 8 am class under the guise of a “mental health day.” This isn’t even like a few short years ago, before kids, because we can’t just schedule a personal day to take ourselves shopping or out to lunch. There are no personal days. No vacations. We are here every single day. We show up. Showing up is literally our main and only job description. But for us moms, us really good, really f*cking tired moms, we show up and then quickly disappear again into the sidelines. We become invisible. We become magicians. So good at meeting your needs and taking care of everything that no one even realizes it’s being done.

It’s thankless and it’s tiring being invisible, but we know that’s not the point. It’s not about us. It’s about our kids. We are digging through mountains of laundry looking for clean socks for the baby to keep his toes warm, as our stomachs growl from not having eaten since the afternoon the day before. We are singing songs from Daniel Tiger despite our splitting headaches and our two hours of sleep, as our kids grin from ear to ear, oblivious to our pain. We are months behind on all our favorite TV shows, the lists of books we want to read, the movies we wanted to see. Friends have stopped calling because we never have enough energy or time to make plans. We let go of our autonomy (praying we’ll get it back someday like everyone says we will). We take all the space in our brains that we used to use to gaze at our navels and we fill it with thoughts about our kids. Our brains vibrate constantly with thoughts about whether they’re okay/safe/warm/happy/loved/hungry/tired/thirsty. It’s an endless loop. How can we not be acting on giving them those things constantly? How do we bother worrying about our own needs when ours seem so simple and insignificant in comparison to those of a child, who literally needs to be taught how to exist in the world. How to feel safe and cared for and happy.

The thing is: we are also full of joy.

From the tips of our toes to the tops of our heads, we are so thankful to be moms. Some of us waited a really long time. Some of us never even thought we ever wanted this. But we’re overjoyed to be here. We’re exhausted, but we’re not pitiful. We are overworked and under-appreciated, but we’re not regretful. We’re here. Every damn day. We wouldn’t be if we didn’t love it. And it’s ok that you can’t see us. It’s ok if you don’t understand what we do all day, or what’s so damn stressful, or why we work ourselves so hard. It’s ok if we seem crazy, or a little worse for our wear. We’re figuring it out, one day at a time. We are figuring out how to be Wonder Woman, without any of the superpowers. We don’t even get the damn lasso because that would be child abuse.