I used to think mood swings were a sign of emotional instability. Now I know they’re just my brain doing CrossFit in the gym of modern motherhood.
People say I have a “temperament.” I say I have a schedule, and the schedule says:
- 7:00 a.m. – hopeful.
- 7:17 a.m. – despair.
- 7:23 a.m. – cautiously optimistic again because the toddler agreed to wear socks.
- 7:24 a.m. – feral, because she decided the socks are “the wrong colour.”
My daughter is three and a half. We didn’t get kindergarten for the second year in a row. I’m on a first-name basis with the administrative abyss. The system said, “Sorry, we’re full,” and I said, “So is my nervous system.”
Both my husband and I work from home, which means we are always working and always home – a modern dream that sounds like freedom but feels more like being trapped in an open-plan office with your entire life.
My mother-in-law (bless her, a literal saint) helps us watch our daughter in the mornings. She shows up with snacks, patience, and the kind of calm that makes me want to cry with gratitude.
And yet somehow, despite all that help, I still find myself at 3:00 p.m. staring at the ceiling, internally screaming, why am I so grumpy when everything is technically fine?
The House Is a Full-Time Job We Didn’t Apply For
It’s not messy, it’s “in a constant state of becoming.”
Every surface is an archaeological dig of our ambitions: a yoga mat drying next to an unfolded laundry, tiny socks waiting for their partner in another dimension, and the three cats, each one shedding in defiance of the vacuum cleaner.
There’s a law in our household: if one of us starts cleaning, the other immediately starts “a more important task,” like answering emails or developing a new life philosophy.
We are both always about to do something – about to rest, about to tidy, about to have time for ourselves. The “about to” never becomes “did.”
But I Work Out
Oh, I get my workouts done. Religiously.
I can do squats while my child narrates a Peppa Pig episode beside me. I can plank through tantrums. I can deadlift existential dread.
I’m proud of it – I really am. My muscles ache, my endorphins rise, and for 45 minutes I am a god. Then I open a blank Word document, step on a KinderJoy toy, and immediately revert to mortal form.
I used to think working out would balance me emotionally. Now I know it just gives me the strength to carry my own mental load with slightly better posture.
Emotional Multitasking: My Hidden Skill
So yes – I can wake up serene and end the morning plotting an escape to a silent monastery.
It’s not an inconsistency. It’s emotional multitasking.
I can be joyful that my daughter is painting with watercolours and simultaneously enraged that she’s painting on the watercolours – meaning, the box. With her hands. Or using the cat’s tail as a brush.
I can be grateful for family help and simultaneously overwhelmed by the noise of daily life. I can be proud of my body, my work, my resilience – and still want to lock myself in the bathroom just to breathe.
Every day feels like a group chat of my inner selves:
The Grateful One.
The Exhausted One.
The Focused One.
The One Who Googles quiet villages with good Wi-Fi.
And The One Who Just Wanted to Drink Her Coffee While It Was Still Warm.
The Myth of “Having It Together”
People sometimes ask, “How do you manage it all?” and I smile the smile of someone who is managing it all and also not at all.
I tell them it’s all about “routines.” My routine is chaos, but with bullet points.
Morning: coffee, workout, work, guilt.
Midday: lunch, toddler negotiations, guilt.
Evening: scroll Instagram, feel guilty about everyone else’s calmness.
We are all pretending to be balanced. But balance doesn’t exist – it’s just a branding strategy for scented candles and planners.
The truth is, I’m allowed to be grumpy.
I’m allowed to have moments when the world feels too loud, too demanding, too full of expectations.
Because every mother I know is carrying an invisible spreadsheet of everyone’s needs, including her own, which is always in red font.
Maybe It’s Not a Mood Swing – It’s a System Reboot
When I shift from cheerful to cranky, it’s not instability. It’s an adaptation.
It’s my nervous system whispering, You’ve reached your daily limit of stimuli. Please restart.
The mood change is a built-in safety mechanism – like my emotional smoke detector saying, “Ma’am, there’s too much input in this house.”
And honestly? That’s evolution. That’s survival.
Because if we didn’t sometimes snap, frown, or go silent, we’d dissolve into polite puddles of burnout.
So yes – I’m moody. But I’m also working, parenting, cooking, cleaning, exercising, existing – all at once.
That’s not dysfunction. That’s endurance.
Maybe being moody isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s the only honest reaction to living in a world that keeps demanding calm from people who are doing everything, all the time.
So next time I go from zen to zombie in ten seconds flat, don’t worry.
It’s not a breakdown.
It’s just me buffering.
Because underneath the mood swings, the lists, the workouts, the emails, the toys, the noise – there’s a woman who’s still here. Showing up. Adjusting. Adapting.
And maybe that’s the real emotional workout – learning to keep your heart open while the world keeps handing you weights.
Erika Matic is a writer, mother, and professional juggler of emotions, deadlines, and snacks. She writes about the beautiful absurdity of modern life at erikamatic.com.
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