This morning felt hard.

Fionn kicked up last night and neither of us slept particularly well. I’m not fully sure what was underneath it all. Maybe the exams he expected today. Maybe the transition back to his mum’s later. Maybe just exhaustion and overwhelm building quietly beneath the surface.

Whatever it was, the night felt unsettled.

This morning I woke him and, to his credit, he got up and had a shower. But while I was in the shower myself, he climbed back into bed and fell asleep again.

A few years ago I probably would have handled a morning like this very differently.

I think part of me always believed difficult situations needed to be pushed through immediately. Keep moving. Keep forcing forward. Don’t lose momentum.

But life — grief especially — has slowly taught me that people are not machines.

Sometimes systems get overloaded.
Sometimes bodies and minds need more time.
Sometimes adjusting the target is wiser than escalating the pressure.

So this morning I decided to leave him sleeping until 9:30 and then try for school at 10 instead.

Not giving up on the day.
Not pretending everything is fine.
Just adjusting.

And honestly, I’m exhausted too.

Last night was also my first night trying the new CPAP F40 mask. I still don’t know if it’s better or worse yet. Part of this whole process seems to involve constantly experimenting, adjusting, and trying to figure out what helps.

Maybe rebuilding life is a bit like that too.

Not dramatic breakthroughs.
Not sudden transformation.

Just small adjustments.
Small attempts.
Small acts of continuing.

The plan now is simple:
try get Fionn into school,
then meet Izabela and go to the gym.

Nothing extraordinary.

But more and more I’m beginning to think healing often looks exactly like this:
ordinary difficult mornings where you keep adapting instead of collapsing.

Update:
We didn’t make it to school today.

I tried encouraging Fionn until about 1pm, but there was no way to get him there.

As the morning went on, it became clearer that a big part of what was underneath things was anxiety around the Drumcondra tests happening today. He didn’t want to do them in class with everyone else and wanted instead to do them separately at another time.

I think moments like this are part of why parenting children through anxiety, grief or overwhelm can feel so difficult at times. From the outside it can simply look like “not going to school”, but underneath that can be fear, pressure, embarrassment, exhaustion or a nervous system that has simply tipped into overload.

Part of me still finds days like this hard. I still want to fix things, solve things, and somehow make everything ok immediately.

But I’m also learning that forcing someone through overwhelm rarely creates safety.

So today became less about “winning the battle” and more about trying to keep connection intact while helping him regulate enough to get through the day.

And actually, by the end of the day, there were still some positives.

Fionn spoke a bit about secondary school and said he feels like it might be a fresh start for him.

He also said he wants to try to get into school for the rest of the week while staying with his mom.

And despite how difficult the day felt at times, he still did 20 minutes of guitar practice this afternoon.

A few years ago with Haze and Brooke I probably wouldn’t even have noticed moments like that. I would have only focused on the fact that school didn’t happen.

But maybe progress is sometimes quieter and more complicated than that.

Maybe some days progress is simply:
holding onto hope,
keeping connection,
and ending the day in a slightly better place than it began.