You said it last fall. You were in a hard stretch at work, the kids were transitioning to a new school, the calendar was impossible. Just get through this season, you told yourself. Things will settle down.
They did, a little. And then the next thing started.
There's always a next thing. A launch, a school year, a busy quarter, a family thing, a stretch where everyone needs more from you than usual. The seasons are real. But somewhere along the way, surviving the current one became the permanent mode, not the temporary one.
I hear this from almost every working parent I talk to. Not as a complaint exactly. More as a statement of fact, delivered with the particular flatness of someone who has stopped expecting it to be different. This is just how it is right now. Ask me again in a few months.
The problem with "just get through it" as a long-term strategy is that it keeps you in a constant relationship with the future. Relief is always coming. Space is always almost here. You're always a few weeks away from the version of your life that has a little more room in it.
And while you're waiting for that version, the current one keeps going. Your kids are the ages they are right now. You are the age you are right now. The things that matter to you are available right now, not in the calmer season that may or may not materialize.
This isn't about toxic positivity or pretending the hard stretches aren't hard. Some seasons genuinely are brutal and survival is the right goal. But there's a difference between a hard season and a life that has been organized entirely around endurance.
The question worth sitting with is this: if you took "just get through it" off the table as a default, what would you actually change? What have you been tolerating because it feels temporary, even though it has been going on for two years?
That's usually where the real work starts.
I offer coaching for working parents who are done just getting through it. Discovery calls are always free. saharnaim.com/coaching
