It's not a puzzle game

A thought flashed into my head the other morning. It was a very tough morning, as many have been lately. Janey woke up upset, and spent the first hour of the day crying. She would ask for something, then not really want it, ask for something else, scream, get hysterical, calm down enough to ask for a video, I'd put it on and it would somehow upset her....on and on and on and on and on. I was trying to do dishes. The dishes were in terrible shape, the laundry was piled up, and I was at my wit's ends. And something in my head said "You can't win this. There's isn't a solution". I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean I realized---there is no right way to do this. This isn't a puzzle game, where if you work at it, you will find the solution and be able to make it all work---Janey happy, the housework done, the money issues gone, the balance achieved. It's a rigged game. It will never all come right. I've been given a deck without some of the cards, or a slot machine with the odds against me. I've been feeling always like I somehow just wasn't playing right---that if I knew the right way to manage my time and money, the right things to do or say with Janey, it would all somehow finally come together. But it won't. And that was a strangely calming thought. I stopped the dishes, picked up Janey and held her. She still cried, still demanded, still wasn't happy, the dishes stayed undone, the bills stayed unpaid, but I was calm for a few minutes. I accepted that no amount of brainpower was going to solve this one.