It’s been a long and productive day.

I worked eight hours today at an elementary school. I was with special education students again, like I will be for most of the rest of the school year. When I came home, I cleaned up my side of the bedroom, got a bunch of garbage picked up, got a full load of dishes in the dishwasher, got two loads of laundry going, and took our puppy, Kiki, to the park. I’ve been struggling to get things done around the house due to the increased stress and physical vigor of my substitute teaching job. I’ve let a lot of things fall to the wayside, things that need to get done, things I can’t expect my partner to always do just because I’m tired.

And even though I’m utterly exhausted right now (because a day entirely on my feet running around with kids and expending mental, emotional, and physical energy to keep them engaged, learning, and safe is even more tiring than it sounds), I’m also proud of myself for getting things done. Ever since I left my ex, I’ve been learning a lot about myself. I already knew I had anxiety and depression. Now I know I have complex PTSD. I’m autistic. I likely have ADHD. And managing all of these things while also holding down a full time job and being a full time grad student and working on a novel is running me fucking ragged.

Some days I just don’t have the capacity to focus on cleaning.

Last week, a kid hit me over the head with a tree branch really hard. He pushed me, shoved me, cussed me out, called me names. He threw things at me. These are sometimes daily occurrences, depending on what sort of tumultuous things are going on in the kids’ lives, and they are incredibly taxing. It takes hours to come down from those experiences and actually get myself back to a state of relaxation. And for me, that’s already hard because I constantly feel as though I’m not doing enough, not getting enough done. My ex and the people I lived with after him made me feel this way on a consistent basis. I was expected to make up for their own shortcomings, and it’s instilled in me an internalized feeling of unworthiness that is pervasive.

I’m grateful to have a partner who communicates when he needs more from me, and does so with patience, compassion, and an understanding that even when I’m trying my best, I will still fail. Because the point shouldn’t even be to reach perfection, but rather to take everything day by day, or even moment by moment. Ten and a half years of my life was spent with other people telling me all of the things I was doing wrong, without any compassion or recognition for my own struggles, as well as the things I was doing right.

So yes, I am proud of what I got done today. I intend to do more tomorrow, if I can. Sometimes I am capable of more than I think, and other times I really just need the fucking rest. I choose to surround myself with the people who understand this and don’t minimize my struggles just because they think theirs are worse. Cause fuck that noise.

I’m sipping on about a shot and a half of whiskey. Woodford Reserves. Neat. And I relish it because I am living the life I always wanted, and that is worth celebrating.