Sometimes Life Feels Hard Because it IS Hard!
A Widow’s Thoughts on Navigating Summer Holiday Overwhelm Without Self-Blame…
It’s a solo parenting classic… you’re shattered, and you feel that both you and the kids are crawling to the end of the summer term, then a helpful person tells you “not to worry, because the summer holidays are round the corner and then you’ll have a chance to rest”… but as all hard working fellow solo parents know… the reality of the summer holidays is even more of a juggle. Two months of trying to fit kids home 24/7 around increased demands for social activities, holidays, more cooking and cleaning and the massively increased mental load… it is enough to make the most resilient of us feel as though we are under achieving.
However, the truth that I’ve learnt over nine years of widowhood is that it’s NOT possible to do it all… we are merely mortal humans, many of us are carrying the huge burden of grief alongside everything else.
Yet we all have those overwhelming days. The ones where everything feels like it's conspiring against you… when you question whether you're doing something fundamentally wrong, and you wonder if other people find life easier because they're somehow better at it than you are.
I had one of those days recently… my favourite of our horses had a minor operation, but it involved a lot more trauma than I had anticipated, and we were having a nightmare trying to find a saddle to fit another of our horses. The bills were mounting, the logistics were overwhelming, the emotion bubbled over, and I found myself asking the familiar question:
"Why does everything feel so hard?"
And then it hit me…
Sometimes life feels hard because it IS hard!
The Permission We Rarely Give Ourselves
We live in a world where some people think that if we're struggling, we must be doing something wrong. This leads us to ruminate that if we just had the right mindset, better boundaries, or more efficient systems, life would flow smoothly. But what if that's not true?
What if some seasons of life are genuinely difficult…
And, acknowledging that isn't giving up…
It's being honest and compassionate to ourselves.
For me hard looks like nine years of carrying the mental load for everything… I’m the one who has created a world that includes teenagers with complex needs, tons of neurodiversity disregulation (mine more than the kids!), aging parents, setting up a business, horses, and all the home admin that comes with being the only adult in charge. So it’s not surprising that recently, I have found myself thinking: "I'm nine years tired."
It’s not just the tiredness that comes from a busy week or a sleepless night. It’s the 24/7 weariness that’s literally nine years tired… the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that comes from carrying all the responsibility without much respite, from making every decision alone, from being "on" all the time because there's no one else to tag in. There’s no co-parent at the end of the phone… the buck literally stops with me.
The Post-Holiday Reality Check
This realisation hit me hardest after returning from a beautiful anniversary break in Cornwall with my daughters. We'd had a wonderful time… we ran away from the world to spend my late husband’s death anniversary at a spa hotel by the sea… it was proper family connection, sea air, and a break from our usual routines. But I truly felt that I came home with a bump.
Complex taxi and social events for teenagers. Mountains of laundry. A broken fridge that needed an engineer (and meant less coffees to keep me going). Work emails piling up. Car shopping with my 17-year-old that revealed insurance costs almost as big as the car itself! And, the return to being needed by everyone for everything, including the dog and the horses.
We rarely talk about the post-holiday crash, or about how much admin goes into planning a holiday in the first place (the pet care etc) and the laundry on our return. The focus is often on how we are supposed to return home refreshed and grateful, instead of the reality which is a feeling of overwhelm from the contrast between the holiday peace and the home chaos! And for so many of us… holidays don't pause the responsibilities - they just postpone them.
The Magic Questions
Sometimes in therapy there are true lightbulb moments and for me it was the question… "If you had a magic wand, what's the one thing you'd change?"
Without hesitation, I know what I’d love more than anything… it’s to have our four horses in fields outside my front door, instead of dealing with the logistics of DIY livery. But this isn’t a financial reality just yet… so instead it got me thinking about something I often talk to my clients about… if where you are now is a waiting room - a space in time between the old world and the new world - how can you make this waiting room as comfortable and as filled with joy as possible?
And these two questions together cut through the overwhelm of surface-level solutions, like better time management, more efficient systems, and positive thinking… and they get to what's actually at the root of our struggles.
Maybe, it's not just about being tired or busy. It's about a specific aspect of your life that creates a backdrop of daily stress, financial pressure and complications that ripple through everything else. And, perhaps what these questions will help you to do is to identify the real source of overwhelm… and acknowledging the problem is often the first step to working out how to solve it in the most compassionate and practical way possible.
Reframing "Hard" as Normal… Not Failure
If you're reading this and thinking "Yes, I feel that life is hard"…
Please know that…
You're not broken.
You're not doing it wrong.
You're not incapable of handling life.
The truth is that you are possibly dealing with genuinely difficult circumstances that would challenge anyone. There’s a strong chance that you are carrying more than is reasonable for one person. And, you might be in a season where life is truly harder than usual.
And sometimes there is no fix… we can’t bring back a deceased soul mate, we can’t magic up money from nowhere, and not all problems are able to be solved. Instead, sometimes what we need is compassionate acknowledgement that some situations are simply hard. Not forever, not without hope for change, but hard right now.
Moving Forward Without Self-Blame
When things are hard, it does not mean that we’re stuck, or that nothing can improve. But it does mean we can:
Stop wondering if we're uniquely flawed
Recognise that the tiredness is cumulative and legitimate
Look for the real root causes of our stress rather than surface symptoms
Give ourselves permission to acknowledge difficulty without having to immediately solve it
Some days, the most productive thing you can do is rest… curl up on the inviting sofa and take a nap with the dog… and trust that hitting pause might create space for a fresh perspective.
Some seasons require survival more than growth.
And, some challenges are genuinely hard because they ARE hard, not because you're handling them wrong.
After recognising my own overwhelm, I've been practicing what I preach recently… taking proper rests, going for runs and bike rides with my daughter, stepping back from social media to focus on family. And guess what, the world didn't fall apart. My business hasn’t crumbled. In fact, slowing down in order to have the energy to keep up with the increase in the parenting demands has been exactly what I needed.
If you're nine years tired, or two years tired, or just tired today… please know that you're not alone. And you're not failing. You're human, dealing with real challenges in a world that rarely acknowledges how complex life actually is.
Sometimes, acknowledging that life is hard right now, taking a step back, seeking the support from someone who “gets it” and trusting that you are where you need to be - it's absolutely the right thing to do for now.
What would your magic wand change?
And, how can you make this waiting room as comfortable and as filled with joy as possible?
I'd love to hear what's at the root of your overwhelm - because naming it is often the first step to addressing it… feel free to email me at emma@rainbowhunting.co.uk and, if you are interested in one-to-one grief and life coaching, please check out my coaching packages here.