Echoes and Excess

Source

The human mind is just like a phone's memory space; once overloaded, the processing unit starts to malfunction such that some items stored in the phone begin to auto-delete. I remember when I started my motherhood and career journey simultaneously, and I almost lost touch with reality.

It was me biting off more than I can chew, and before I knew it, I felt like a robot whose programming was faulty. I was not only skipping memories, but my brain was processing information faster than my body was responding. In my head I was running to cross a busy road, but in reality I was jogging.

There were times I got scolded by angry commuters who felt I had a death wish moving so slowly to cross a busy road. Other times I'm cooking and forgetting to add my seasonings. Or was it when I forgot I had already opened my face cleanser and I shook the bottle vigorously, spilling its contents all over my office inventory as I was taking unfinished jobs home at the time?

Those were dark times, I tell you, and my daughter was the worst hit as school runs became the bane of my entire existence. At my daughter's school, they had different outfits for different days of the week, and it was a hard time keeping up, such that my daughter was always the odd-looking one amongst her peers, as I never got her outfits for school right.

It got so embarrassing that the head teacher had to be updating the wears for the day every morning, and guess what? Sometimes I forget to check my phone and still miss it. I didn't realize the damaging effect my broken state had on our lives till my daughter's education was at stake. Imagine putting your all into being the best at parenting, but it seems the more you try, the more damaging the situation gets.

I had one time shared my experience on how I confused my daughter's midterm test for midterm break. At the time I was fed up; my mind capacity was overloaded, and I needed an escape from my congested life, so it was an easy mix-up.

I had desperately anticipated the break so as to catch my breath, and while my daughter's test was going on, she was busy following me to the office as I felt they were on break. After the supposed break was over and I discovered the mix-up, I was devastated, and I felt like a terrible parent who had failed her child.

Thankfully my mommy came through with her wisdom, and I was able to salvage the situation for my daughter, who got a mock-up test later on.

That experience was what changed it all for me, and I knew I had to sit up not for myself but for my daughter. One practice that has always helped me resolve self-inflicted crises is contemplating in a quiet corner to identify the root cause of the problem.

It was from my contemplation exercise, that I discovered I had cheated nature so terribly, and it fought back.

I saw that in my quest of earning, I had deprived myself of sleep and was contending with 2 to 4 hours of sleep daily. Functioning under such conditions of improper rest and a truckload of activities was like driving a car whose radiator was dried out and not refilling it with water.

Thankfully I didn't burn out so badly before identifying and resolving my challenges.