The effects of the formidable course I've been navigating for the past month are starting to show. Cracks in the surface, stamina stumbling again and again, unshakeable, inescapable fatigue that feels like gnarled, vicious hands grasping for every ounce of my qi. It'd be one thing if it were just my path, my obstacles; at least then I could own those and go with that, adjusting where possible or necessary. But I'm also travelling on behalf of my boys, and that means I can't just jump off and press pause for a needed pit stop. For the first time in a long while, I have, recently, felt choked. Bearing things privately, in such a solo fashion, isn't my usual take on "crisis management," so to speak. At times I feel I will surely burst; at the least into a soggy puddle of tears. Did you see any of last Saturday's SNL skits? They weren't that great, but one, about this bizarre DJ, Andy Samberg, who drives crowd members to an orgasmic brink by teasing them with when he'll press the "Bass button," kinda made me laugh. One by one, their heads explode because they just can't take the anticipation anymore. That's rather how I feel.

I'm certainly not in crisis nor worried that my head will burst, but you know when things feel like they're snowballing so rapidly that no matter what you do, you're definitely going to get swept up? I'm in mid-ball, hurtling down the face with the avalanche.

Some of it's the normal crap of life: our washing machine, dryer, toothbrush and my car's rear brakes broke in the same month, and we recently learned we need to replace part of our roof due to the spate of heavy snows and rains in the past few years. And I found this morning that Nutmeg has been using the peace lily I've tended for the past four years (I got it as thanks for being a room parents when J was in PK so it's damn special) as a second litterbox. Uh, no!

Some of it is surely this time of year which has everyone ducking for cover or running for the hills. It's downright lunatic, people, the End Times for anyone who doesn't thrive on schedule-based mayhem. I truly cannot believe the state of affairs of my own calendar until June 6. No one should open or even cast eyes upon it. You'll end up like that crazy idiot in Raiders of the Lost Ark whose certitude that he's special results in him melting away like Icarus' wings. Yes, yes, their downfalls were not over-scheduled lives but, rather, hubris, but the outcomes resemble one another in a terrible way.

But most of it is just how truly, extraordinarily, mind-blowingly, all-encompassingly hard parenthood is when a wrench clogs the spokes of your ride. I sometimes think of motherhood as an uphill ride on a pedal bike with two speeds and a half-flat tire. You'll make it but it won't be easy and you can't slack off in any big way. For most of the trip, coasting is a pipe dream. It's fulfilling and exciting but simple it is not.

When challenge steps in, popping the chain or blowing a tire completely in the midst of this incline, your ride gets a hell of a lot more onerous. It's more stressful, more tiring, more demanding than it already was. Then winter comes and the next thing you know you're rolling back from whence you came in a cold white ball and blind.

I can't stop, I can't get out. I can only keep going, soldiering on and drawing on reserves and strengths previously unknown to me, hoping that I'm closing in on the foot of the mountain with hefty replenishment stations waiting near a spa and a cocktail bar.