Different

"I feel bad saying I'm tired, I can't believe I'm complaining to you."

"I shouldn't say anything, I know I'm lucky to have her Dad with me."

"Do you ever sleep? Seriously, when do you sleep? When do you have time?"

Yep. I'm busy. I work full-time. I write part-time. I have a preschooler, who I raise alone. I volunteer. I'm on an advisory council. I might be picking up another part-time job. It's called life and while it might not look just like yours, I'm not comparing because it's really apples to oranges, isn't it? Let's just stop comparing.

When Mr Hockey Coach exclaims that he's tired and I nod empathetically, he immediately retracts his statement because he "can't be tired" because he's not me, he's not raising a kid. Wait, what? No, honey, you can be tired.

When my girlfriend vents about how hard it is to be a working parent, she suddenly bites her tongue and says how lucky she is to have her partner with her - someone to share the load. But it's still hard. Parenting is hard. Juggling your workload is hard. Maintaining a social life is hard. It's all hard.

I'm one "try being a single parent" meme away from my head exploding because we're all comparing apples to pineapples and watermelon to walnuts and it's gotta stop. It's useless. It's tiresome. It's time consuming. And we single parents aren't superior to the stay-at-home moms or the work-at-home moms or the parents who have a partner to help raise the kids. (Sorry, single parents. Our shit stinks, too.)

I have friends who are stay-at-home moms, and their lives are busy and rewarding and they are no easier and no harder than mine. They're different. Same goes for my work-at-home mom friends. Shit, I've got friends who don't have kids whose lives are as busy and hectic and stressful and awesome as mine. 

We all have routines and when they are interrupted, it throws us off. 

We all have challenges. We all have needs. We all have ups and downs.

I'm not invincible. I just have different priorities. Not bad. Not better.

 Just different.