Tonight I Needed a Bath

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Tonight I needed a bath.

Tonight I needed a bath because life felt like too much.  

Because it finally hit me that we were putting our house on the market with two small children and a baby. And as the team of stagers left our house, transforming our once kid-friendly living area into a beautiful hotel-like lobby, with light beige couches and glass coffee tables, I stood there like a deer in headlights wondering how the hell I was going to manage it all as my older kids wrestled each other on the floor. 

On the outskirts of this picturesque living area, our things were scattered everywhere. Book bags and lunch boxes that needed to be unpacked, shoes and dirty socks tossed on the floor. The mess cluttered my mind. And the demands and shrieks from my kids piled on top of my spiraling thoughts. 

The panic rushed in. I felt way in over my head. 

I hid in the bathroom to escape the noise. I fantasized about having a magic wand that would make everything right. Or easy.

Not that I even knew what it would do because this was just life right now.

I fed the kids dinner and put the baby to bed. When my husband came home from work, I snapped and demanded he do bedtime with the older two on his own. I didn’t have it in me tonight.

I felt so empty, yet so full of anxiety.

But I couldn’t clean. I couldn’t problem-solve. I couldn’t pack up lunches or sort through clothes. I couldn’t empty the dishwasher or wash a single bottle. I couldn’t warm up my leftover dinner from the night before and sit down and eat. I couldn’t. Not tonight.

But I also couldn’t just go to bed.

I thought about taking a shower – my typical oasis at the end of the day. But I had just blow-dried my hair, and I didn’t want to do it all over again.

I opened the linen closet and pulled out the bath bombs a friend had gifted to me while pregnant with my third. “Stress Relief”- yeah, that’s definitely the one.

I ran the bath and tossed it in. I got in and slowly leaned back. The warm water felt like a blanket on my skin. I sucked in all the air from the room.

The noise quieted in my head. The room felt bigger, and problems seemed smaller. Tonight I needed a bath.

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Alisa Fulvio
Alisa is a psychotherapist, life coach and mom of three. Alisa is a native of Fairfield County and lives with her husband (a New York transplant), daughter (October 2012) and two sons (January 2015, June 2018). Following the birth of her second child, Alisa left her full-time job and pursued her dream of starting her own private practice by founding Balanced Being Counseling, LLC and Balanced Being Coaching, LLC (abalancedbeing.com) located in downtown Fairfield. Alisa specializes in working with young women and moms to decrease stress and manage feelings of anxiety and depression. She is trained in treating perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and is an active committee member of Postpartum Support International- CT Chapter serving as the Communications Chair. Alisa is the creator the Facebook Group, Balanced Mama, a non-judgmental space for moms to feel inspired, gain support and come together among the chaos. She is passionate about motherhood, supporting women, buffalo chicken and a good margarita.

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