Did you get to work this morning? Then you accomplished a monumental feat. Does that sound crazy? I mean, you get up and go to work. Simple, right? No. In fact it takes several steps. If you are depressed, or even just plain tired and burned out, each step is a hurdle in itself. Here’s an average overview of my morning.
6:00 A.M. The alarm goes off. You have to crawl out of bed. Out from under the warm covers. Don’t hit snooze, it will only make it worse. Get up. You have to get up. No one else is going to do this for you. No, you don’t have any more sick leave, and you aren’t actually sick either. Just crawl out. Come on now.
That is not going to help matters.
6:05 A.M. You’re still there. Get up. You are losing time. This is just going to make it harder. Get up. Getupgetupgetup!
6:10 A.M. Okay, yay, you are on your feet. Now you have to find clothes. Go to your closet. Perform the checklist.
1) Did you do laundry last night? Or ever?
2) Do any of your clean clothes fit? Do any of them match?
3) Will the clothes protect you from the elements, including weather both outside and inside your office?
4) What possessed you to buy that? It’s horrible.
6:15 A.M. You still haven’t selected clothes. No, you can’t give up and go to bed. Pick something. Quit staring at your closet. Just grab something. Anything. Well, not that. You’ll look like a freak.
I should probably update my wardrobe.
6:20 A.M. Oh, hooray, you have on clothes. No socks or shoes, but we’ll get to that. Now it’s time for breakfast. What to eat? Doesn’t matter if you aren’t hungry now. You will be later. You have to eat. Another checklist.
1.) Did you go grocery shopping this weekend? Or ever?
2.) Is there something in the refrigerator that isn’t either expired or growing new life?
3.) What’s the easiest thing to fix? Cereal. Milk, cereal, bowl, spoon.
4.) Do you have any cereal? Or milk? Or clean bowls? Or spoons?
5.) Do you have the money for McDonalds? Or the time? Wait – are those Poptarts? These are okay. There are vitamins in them.
Breakfast of Champions
6:30 A.M. Eat breakfast. Hurry up. Don’t take so long looking a the internet while you eat. There’s still stuff to do. Like socks and shoes. Oh, and what was the other thing? Kids. Oh, right.
6:35 A.M. Wake up children. Get sucked into bed with them. Cuddle. Try to wake up children again. Motivate them. You want to get up because – school! Fun! Yeah, I’m full of crap, just get up.
6:45 A.M. I meant get up, GET UP NOW! Stop crying. We don’t have time. Just get up and get dressed! No, you can’t wear your capris, it is 20 degrees outside. Where are your shoes? All you have is snow boots? Fine.
A typical school outfit for younger daughter.
6:50 A.M. Those kids. Can’t find anything. Where are my socks? Or shoes? Or glasses? Or coat? Or purse?
7:05 A.M. Kids dressed. I find most of missing objects. You still have to brush your hair, kids. Wait, so do I. And make up. Do I have time? Do I have the energy? Probably not. Skip it. Do brush the hair and teeth though, that’s too much.
7:10 A.M. No, we don’t have time to watch a silly youtube video. Okay, just one.
7:20 A.M. Kids, did you eat? Well, go eat something. I don’t know, a granola bar. What do you mean there aren’t any left? There was a box – that’s empty. Right. Hey, there’s Poptarts. Eat those.
7:25 A.M. We must be out the door to beat traffic. Two schools to drop kids off at, then to get to my own workplace. No sweat. We’re making good time.
7:30 A.M. Your shoes. Where are your shoes? Don’t forget your coat. You have three. Where is one coat? Get your band instrument. Get in the car. Get in! Oh, I have to unlock it. Okay. Hey, there’s frost on the window. Die frost fairies, die!
Aw, pretty. Buh-bye!
7:35 A.M. Leaving the driveway. Headed for School Number One. Turn around. Pick up forgotten backup.
7:40 A.M. Headed out again. School One. One kid sings, other yells. Drop off first child. Now to just . . . okay, so I’m stuck as car after car passes.
7:45 A.M. The car with the twenty stick figure children stickers on the back window has finally departed. I am free! Now to get to the other side of town with older child. Listen to her panic as she is certain she will be late and there will be all sorts of trouble for this.
7:50 A.M. Record time! Possibly speeding record time. Drop off second child. Have pretend struggle about letting go, just like in Titanic. Finally push her out. Now to just get out of here. Car passes. Another car passes. A bus passes.
I’m sure there will be a break in this any time now.
7:55 A.M. I am on my way to work. Stoplights. I hit every. single. one.
8:00 A.M. At work! Find a parking place! Fortunately I still have the lung disease placard and so do not have to park 1 mile away. When it runs out, I’m totally screwed.
8:05 A.M. Run, don’t walk inside. Ignore chiming clock tower. You will not turn into a girl with rags. Your clothes are bad enough already.
8:05 A.M. Make it up to your office. Collapse in chair. Is it time to go home yet?
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A Canvas Of The Minds 
Nice post Alice, I struggle with a dog that doesn’t need to get dressed.
From 6 to 8 would be enough for me to ask for dental and all other benefits.
I’m annoyed more before 8 AM than most people are all day. 😀
You’ve just described my life sans kids. How’d you get in there? 🙂
I’m not sure. I probably lost something and wandered in.
This sounds (and probably is) really hard. Getting myself ready in the morning is too much a task, I can’t even imagine dragging more creatures to my crazy routine. I’m weighing the pros and cons of living near my workplace, if the additional expenses of more expensive living is worth the additional zzzzzzs in the morning.
Before I started working I thought that I should have a positive attitude, and must always think happy thoughts. This thinking vanished in the first 5 minutes of being surrounded by too-tired-to-smile working people in the office. I got infected and now I think I’m 85% zombie.
Zombie sounds about right. I actually live 5 minutes away from my workplace and from one of the kid’s schools yet it takes me 30 minutes to get to work. Physics is not my friend.
You did brilliantly as always! I find it hard enough to deal with just me and the Toby monster before heading out to work. Hehe kill those frost fairies they deserve it. xx
The kids and I have fun making screaming noises. Noooo, Tinkerbell, noooo!
Don’t forget Periwinkle her newly found sister! lol
They keep making those stupid Tinkerbell movies because they hate me, I think. When I first saw Periwinkle, I thought of the dog on Blue’s Clues. My mind is totally warped by T.V. now.
Luckily I’ve not seen any of them just the adverts…avoided that bullet at work, someone else took them to see it and I don’t have children so don’t have to for their sake. Though I do end up watching a lot of Thomas the Tank and Postman Pat with work :S
Oh, nooo, Thomas the Tank Engine was imported over here. Man, those were the pissiest trains. I have a review of that one complete with scary pictures. I don’t like faces on modes of transportation. It’s like they’re carrying people in their stomachs. Yuck.
they’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight, shunting trucks and hauling freight….oh yes, I know all the words. I may suggest you never watch My neighbour Totoro then…there’s a cat bus….you heard right a bus that’s a cat that carries passengers inside it. It has windows and everything.
The number of times I’ve wanted to go home as soon as I walked into work, I’ve lost count of. However that may have been slightly more because I didn’t like the job.
I can totally sympathise with the not wanting to get out of bed feeling. It’s just too much like hard work some days.
I usually like my job. I just don’t like 8 hours worth. And I don’t like getting up early and the dressed thing. What a bother.
There’s just something wonderfully comforting about being in bed, isn’t there? I think it’s because beds don’t make demands of us.
Oh, yes. I also made the mistake of finally getting a new bed after getting rid of one that was like a zillion years old. It is heavenly.
I completely understand that feeling. Sometimes, I miss my bed from my flat. I had a lovely king-sized bed with four pillows on it and a king-sized duvet, and the mattress was something like 10 inches deep. I’m now in a 3-foot single that is I don’t know how old, with two pillows (one foam and one feather and I hate feather pillows) and a single duvet. Which is not as bad as it could be. On the two occasions I’ve been to other religious communities recently, they’ve had better pillows but the beds have only been 2 foot 6 wide and I swear every time I tried to roll over, I hit the wall.
Fortunately the bed went to a friend, it’s not been left for tenants to trash, but as the friend and his family smoke like chimneys, I rather doubt I’d sleep as well in it as I did before!
Even here, I have the occasional day where I really don’t want to get out of bed and face the world. I’m just glad we have so much silence in the day, it means that no-one will try to talk to me too soon.
I think that is one thing I would like about life with the sisters – silence! Well, occasional silence. My head would explode if I were forced to keep silent all the time.
Mornings are hectic, no doubt. Guess that’s what makes Saturdays so blissful. At least when you have older kids, anyway. Unfortunately, younger kids see Saturday as just another day to wake up with the sun. 🙂
Yeah, glad they are 8 and 12 now. Sometimes the youngest is still dumb enough to come wake me, but they’re starting to figure out that awake Mom will tell them to go do their chores.
Oh. MY. God.! Someone who understands when I say I just can’t, I just don’t, have the energy to do normal, everyday, things. No, I am NOT lazy, I am ILL. It IS that hard and I AM that wiped out. Maybe someday I will be able to make it to work again! You explained the challenges so wonderfully, so honestly. I wish everyone could understand this.
Me too. People just don’t get it. It is very, very hard sometimes.
Some of those morning I do just give in and stay home and then spend the rest of the day feeling guilty. Boo to societal expectations that you will never be TIRED or CRANKY. You will always be POSITIVE and full of ENERGY. Yea right!
Yeah, sometimes, especially if you didn’t get enough sleep, you realize you’d be useless anyway. Except you feel like you aren’t quite tired or sick enough. And people that tell you to smile? Those people annoy me.
I HATE those people. SMILE, come on Smile! Lame!! haha. I agree, no one understands the idea of a “mental” health day. Unless you’re on death’s doorstep you’d better show up to work! It’s go go go until you’re in the grave. I say, pass, I’m over it, I’m going back to bed.
It’s all about those little daily steps – gotta start with those. Keep up the good work 😉 x
Ps, those pop tarts look very tasty!
I know. I love pop tarts. Trying to be healthier so my husband buys some. Seriously?
Hell yeah lol. Well, you’ve got to treat yourself sometimes, right?
Okay, how long have you been spying on me? None? I guess not because I actually have only one child, but you did a terrific job of showing how getting to work takes a LOT more steps than most people realize!
Thanks. I feel the same way when I read some blog posts. It’s like they’re inside my head! Then I remember that my therapist said “Depression is the same. People are different. We are not our depression, but it looks the same in so many people.”
Do you live in my house?!?!
If I did, I would be expecting daily comics. 😀
Daily comics? No time for that! Why do you think I do most my sketching in lunch breaks?
Great Post 🙂
Minus the Pop Tarts, you described pretty much exactly our morning routine … although we fall victim to the Snooze button almost every day.
You’re right about that snooze button. In the moment, you’re all like, ‘Ooh, I can snuggle down here for a few more minutes.’ In reality, half-an-hour then passes without your knowledge and your stress levels suddenly shoot through the roof and you’re hoping your hair doesn’t look too gross in a ponytail because there is now absolutely no time to wash it.
You are amazing to do this with kids. Seriously. I mean, I’m sure you have your moments when you get stressed out with them, because every parent does, but I have never, ever heard you speak (write) about them with anything but love. And when you’re depressed, it’s hard not to get short-tempered or frustrated, even with those you love more than life itself.
Anyway, I love this post. It’s difficult to articulate the extra challenges being depressed (or, as you say, “even just plain tired and burned out”) present us with when completing the most regular tasks that most people take for granted, and you do it with a great mixture of truth and humor.
Also, you just reminded me to go put in a load of laundry, because I still haven’t done so, and thus I went to Starbucks in my Christmas morning pajamas tonight, because I literally have no pants.
Thank you. We may end up yelling at each other, but I try to have us forgiven before I drop them off. Once or twice I had to leave Thing Two stomping in the dirt but usually I can get them cheered up before school. So frustrating though! Sometimes my husband and I joke about dropping them off in the woods with some breadcrumbs.
I currently have two pairs of pants that usually fit (bloating is not fun) and don’t have too many stains. I try to alternate them. Maybe people don’t notice.