The Eggs Don't Refill Themselves

I used to think being tired meant you needed sleep. Now I know there's a very specific kind of tired where you could sleep ten hours, wake up, and still feel like your brain pulled an all-nighter running a full operations meeting, with no agenda, and no one else invited. That's the mental load. And the worst part is that it's invisible. Aggressively invisible. To the point where the people living in your own house are just going about their lives, fully convinced things simply exist, materializing out of thin air whenever they happen to need them.

Take eggs, for example. I casually asked my husband the other day, "Hey, do we need eggs?" Simple. Basic. Harmless question. And this man looks at me and says, "I don't know, they're just always refilled for me when I go to cook them." Sir. Always refilled. Like we have a magical chicken living in the basement, laying eggs on demand and restocking the fridge as her full-time job. No. They are not "always refilled." I notice when they're getting low. I add them to the grocery list. I remember to actually go to the store. I carry them in, put them away, and somehow make sure there are eggs in that fridge every single time you randomly decide you're a breakfast chef on a Saturday morning. But sure, they "just refill themselves." I'll be adding Egg Fairy to my resume, right under my actual job title.

Or my personal favorite, the school snack situation. My daughter's snack bag gets restocked every single week like it's just part of the natural order of the universe, like gravity, like the sun coming up. Did she ask for it? No. Did she remind me it was getting low? No. Did she even think about it once? Also no. This week she looked at me and said, "Mom, it's crazy I never run out of snacks." Meanwhile I'm over here checking the bag, noticing it's low, restocking it, making sure there's variety because apparently snacks have standards now too, and doing all of that before anyone else in the house even realizes it needed to be done. But to her, it's just there. Like I run some kind of silent, unpaid snack subscription service with guaranteed weekly delivery and no customer ever has to place an order.

And then there was the toothpaste comment, which really took me out. "Mom, how do we always have toothpaste? Like, we never run out. How is that possible?" I had to pause on that one. Because you're right. It is incredible. It really is amazing how toothpaste just magically appears before the very last drop is gone, like we're living in a luxury hotel with full restock service. Except instead of housekeeping, it's me. Noticing it's getting low. Mentally filing that information away in the running list that never actually shuts off. Adding it to the grocery list. Remembering to actually buy it before it becomes a full-blown family crisis at 9 p.m. on a school night. But sure, let's all stand around and marvel at the mystery of the never-ending toothpaste like it's some kind of miracle we should all just accept without asking questions.

And that right there is the mental load. It's not just doing things. It's thinking about things before they ever need to be done, so no one else has to think about them at all. It's being the reason everything "just works." And the wild part is that from the outside, it looks like nothing. I can be sitting on the couch, not moving, not doing a single visible thing, and someone will walk by and say, "Must be nice to relax." Oh, I'm so glad you asked, actually, because while I'm sitting here my brain is tracking what we're low on, planning dinner that no one will have opinions about until it's somehow wrong, remembering appointments, mentally reorganizing the entire week, wondering if I forgot something important, and thinking about that one specific thing I definitely forgot but won't actually remember until it's too late to fix it. But yes. I am "relaxing."

And here's the best part. Every once in a while I do actually sit down and try to take a real break. And instead of peace, my brain goes, perfect, let's spiral. Because now I'm thinking, should I be doing something right now. Did I forget something. Why am I sitting here when there are clearly seventy-two things that could be done instead. Is this what relaxing is supposed to feel like, or am I somehow doing it wrong too. And then comes the guilt. Guilt for sitting. Guilt for resting. Guilt for not being productive for five consecutive minutes. Guilt for enjoying a few seconds of silence like I just committed some minor, punishable crime.

Which is ironic, because I am also the exact same person telling everyone else, "you need to rest," "take a break," "self-care matters." Meanwhile, when it's my turn, I sit down and almost immediately feel like I should at least be folding something while I do it. Like, can I relax, but productively. Is there some way to rest while also accomplishing three tasks and solving world peace on the side, just to make the sitting feel earned.

And even in a house with help, good, genuine help, there's still usually one person carrying the mental side of all of it. The one who remembers. The one who notices before it's a problem. The one who makes sure things don't run out, fall apart, or get forgotten entirely. The one who makes life feel seamless for absolutely everyone else in the house, while it rarely feels seamless for her.

So yeah. Things don't just happen. The eggs don't refill themselves. The snacks don't magically appear in that bag. The toothpaste is not part of some miracle subscription plan nobody signed up for. There is a brain behind all of it. A very tired, slightly sarcastic, running-on-caffeine brain that never fully clocks out, even when the body attached to it is sitting perfectly still on the couch.

And if you're that person too, the one holding it all together behind the scenes where nobody sees the actual weight of it, just know this. You're not crazy. You're not dramatic. You're just the reason everything works. And honestly, you deserve at least one moment where you sit down and don't feel like you need to get back up immediately to go check on something.

But if you can't quite do that yet, same. I'm right there with you.

Signed, Director of Eggs, Snacks, and Silent Systems.