“As my nurse sleeps, I quietly clean the house, do the dishes, prepare meals, do laundry. When she’s leaving, she has a clean home, clean scrubs, somewhat sane children, and a meal ready to go. 5 hours after her shift should’ve ended, she calls. I let her talk, I let her vent. She just wants to stay awake. I let her know she’s an amazing mother, nurse, wife. It’s the little things that matter. They all count.”
‘When you marry a nurse, you marry their job. She gives 100% day in and day out.’: Man writes sweet tribute to nurse wife, ‘this is her calling’
‘We come home empty. We don’t want to talk. The hardest work you’ll ever do is love a nurse.’: Nurse pens ‘thank you’ letter to those who ‘love us and let us do this work’
“We get up early, no time to drink coffee over the newspaper. We come home late, too tired to cook. We work extra because we know there’s sick people who need us. We miss events, holidays, birthdays. It may seem we’ve left all our caring, heart, and love at work, and come home to you empty. We probably have. But we need your understanding. We need to know you ‘get it.'”
‘Minutes before this nap, we heard lyrics to a song that stated, ‘love will lie to you.’ He couldn’t deal.’: Adoptive mom calms her concerned son after confusing song lyrics
“He bowed up and said, ‘That’s not true! It’s not true! Love doesn’t lie to us.’ So we talked.”
‘I almost set our house on fire. Not in the trendy ‘my home is ‘lit’’ kind of way. Nope.’ Mom’s eye-opening frozen pizza accident forced her to get out of ‘survival mode’
“I thought that since I followed the instructions to place the pizza directly on the rack, the smoky smell was just the toppings dropping off the pizza and burning. Nope. My husband explained I could have burned the whole house down, and all of us inside of it. He’s right.”
‘Motherhood is not a funeral to your old life. You don’t need to mourn it anymore. What makes ME happy? No more guilt.’
“Do you ever sit down at the end of the night, after wiping down another counter, and think, where have I gone? When the only time you have to yourself is the 5 minutes you lay in bed utterly exhausted and fight to stay awake to just have one minute, one second, to be yourself again. Do you ever miss the old you? Me too.”
‘I bought every plaid skirt I could find, because Cher wore plaid skirts in ‘Clueless.’ I shopped at Express and pretended to like the movie ‘She’s All That.’
“When I was in junior high, I wore Tommy Hilfiger polos, Dr. Martens and I doused myself in CK One perfume, because everyone else was. I had no idea who I was. I became a continual copy-cat, and it continued into adulthood. I didn’t know any other way to be. I was exhausted.”
‘You asked me today if I was okay. I lied and said, ‘I’m fine,’ but the truth is I’m tired. No, I am exhausted.’
“You’re probably wondering where that girl went that you married, and under her matted bun hair, tired eyes and cheese-stained clothes, she’s there. You probably miss her, and I do too. That’s why I need you to understand what I’m about to say.”
‘We called it ‘Naughty November.’ We were on a roll for the first 3 days. And then I got my period and lost my mojo. I didn’t want my husband to touch me.’: Mom admits she’s ‘just too damn tired to be intentional about intimacy’
“I hate to admit it, but having sex feels like a chore. I can’t be the only one? I felt like I failed. I would rather just sleep and be alone.”
‘It started off as a good day where I felt like I could be productive. But then the demands of parenting pulled me in every way, until I was stretched beyond bouncing back.’
“I am exhausted. But I am hyper alert and my thoughts are intense. Everything is still spinning in my head. Like running on adrenaline, but feeling so fatigued.”
‘Dear husband, please don’t give up on us.’
“I remember us as newlyweds and how obnoxious we used to be. Holding hands everywhere, sneaking kisses. I wish I could be that girl for you, but I just can’t. I’m gross. I’m exhausted. If one more person touches me, I may lose it.”
