Last night I held a channeled spirit session for five of my family members.

We all gathered in a circle amidst candle light and crystals and fresh flowers, and crazy things happened. Tons of energy moved.

Healing was offered. Answers were given.

I really want to write all about it, but I just can’t.

Because my mind is consumed with my real life. My normal life.

My just-like-everyone-else life.

Parenting. This. Kid.

Negotiating screen time with outdoor time. Balancing veggies with gummies. Trying to teach her to be a kind, civilized human being while trying not to lose my own sh*t half the time.

I read this blog post yesterday and cried big ol’ crocodile tears. This woman hit it spot-on. And even though she didn’t mention us only-childers, I didn’t hold it against her.

She sounds busy.

But seriously, this mom thing is hard.

And I know that’s a belief. And I know that beliefs are just thoughts we think over and over again. And I know that I could change that belief. But seriously, how do you not think “this is hard” on repeat when you’re dealing with an irrational three-nager?

When you’re chasing after her with her clothes and she’s running away screaming and crying all because you’re trying to take her to the park she wanted to go to in the first place.

When you make her favorite breakfast and spend extra time Van Goghing it into the shape of a butterfly and she looks at you and growls and stomps off because it’s not Mickey Mouse.

When you spend all morning playing with her and then the moment you have to go pee she stands at the bathroom door crying because “you never play with her.”

My older sister and I always half-seriously, half-jokingly say that we struggle with nothing. One of us will be in the throes of a sob-story, and those powerful little words will steal past our lips, “I’m just really struggling lately with…”

At which point the other one will say, “Oh really, because I thought you struggled with nothing?”

Bam. That’s what it’s like being in a law of attraction, spirit-centered, thoughts-create-your-reality, higher-awareness sisterhood. That being a victimized, normal human stuff just doesn’t fly.

But today I texted her through tears and said these words:

“You know how we struggle with nothing? Well I do struggle with something. If I’m being honest. I struggle with being easy on myself. With letting myself off the hook. With loving myself through this high-pressure job of making life-altering decisions for another being. I struggle. I do.”

And it’s true for me right now. I don’t want it to be, but god it is, and that’s so annoying. And I’m thinking maybe it has been true as long as I’ve been a parent.

Because parenting stuff is always in the background for me. Or the foreground. However you want to see it. Whatever is going on for me in any aspect of my life, there is always also that. A quiet hum sometimes. A giant roar other times. But it’s always there.

And even though I have this seemingly directly line to the field of all possibility, I feel tragically and Shakespeareanly human when it comes to being a mother. Even though I led a kick-a** seance last night and even though I can meditate myself into ecstatic bliss, I still, still struggle with raising this little person in a way that we can both feel good about when it’s all said and done.

Because mystical or not, this mom thing is hard.

And what helps me cope on those infuriatingly confusing days of tug-of-war with this tiny human is that knowledge that I’m not alone in this. None of us are.

This crazy, emotional, roller-coaster of an experience isn’t this weird ailment that only one of us was afflicted with. It’s Universal. It’s part of the human experience. And the rumor I’m hearing on the street (and from that mommy blogger that first spurred all this for me) is that it’s hard for all of us, mystical or not.

And knowing that is what helps me cope, what keeps me standing upright in that kitchen cutting the crust off her sandwiches instead of lying in bed sobbing with the covers over my head. It isn’t just because misery loves company. It’s because the misery feels purposeful if we’re all in it together. Like there’s a reason for it bigger than even you or I can see.

As much as I’d love for it to be, life isn’t about bottomless margaritas and a blur of days and nights in endless ease. It is about contrast. Because contrast is what makes the highs even higher, and it is what calls us to expand and grow.

So yes, I live in a sleep-deprived fog mostly on my hands and knees prying small cylinders of dried up mac and cheese off the floor. But so do you.

And today, that’s what’s keeping me sane.

Author: Kayla Floyd 

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: author’s own