Busy season

I dread this time of year — not because it’s the unpredictable tail end of winter but because I’m married to a certified public accountant. For our family, tax season is our “busy season,” and it runs from the beginning of January to the end of April. It’s basically like harvest and planting seasons combined into one long stretch. Aaron puts in a tremendous number of hours each week, which means the kids and I readjust our lifestyle for a few months.

Much like childbirth, I head into every busy season with optimism, forgetting the pains and struggles of the last go around. And, for the first couple of weeks, I crush it. Meals are made, children are wrangled and I have the mental capacity to tolerate the altered schedule of the season. However, as the months drag on, the toll of being the support person for someone in a busy season sets in.

Pretty soon, the physical, mental and emotional demands of taking care of the house and feeling alone in many endeavors weigh on me. Resentment kicks in as I battle the cold, dark days of the season. I’m mad at Aaron for not being around. I’m angry at having to carry most of the responsibility and mental load. I’m saddened to see him come home constantly anxious or deflated from work.

Then, my emotional side takes over, and I feel guilty for being resentful. I’m grateful for his job but angry at the same time. I switch over from being mad at Aaron to being mad at his profession, but ultimately, I’m frustrated my channeled anger isn’t going to solve any of our problems.

We are both drained from fighting individual battles. Neither of us has the capacity to be the optimistic, empathetic person for each other during the entirety of the busy season. Some days are good, some days are hard. It’s an exhausting circle of emotions that will continue until May. We’ve been in this together for over 10 years, and I still don’t have the magic answer to making this season of life easier on any of us.

If anything, it highlights the rockstar of a mom I had growing up. During the busy seasons of farming, when my dad was constantly in the fields or out in the barns later than normal, she did it all inside our home, and I clearly didn’t thank her enough for it.

A friend of mine, who’s married to a beef and crop farmer, often shares her frustrations with me about being a mom and wife during harvest and planting. She is part of a social media group of farm wives from across the Midwest, and they get together in person once a year.

She talked about this year’s event as they gathered for mostly camaraderie and time away, and there was a part of the event that really struck her. Women got up in front of the group and began sharing some of their deepest, darkest times as farm wives with one another. Crying through stories of therapy sessions, substance abuse and depression, these women confided their moments of vulnerability with mostly strangers. As each of them finished their stories, others would stand up and share how they, too, found themselves in similar situations or could see themselves following down the same path.

The unintended theme of the get-together became “We are all just one season away from falling off the deep end.” And boy, did I resonate with that.

As a support person for someone in any profession that has a demanding season of life — farmer, CPA, healthcare worker or such — I think we’ve all found ourselves lost in the abyss. The taxing toll of keeping it all together has left a lot of us staring into the deep, dark waters of loneliness, anger or helplessness.

Maybe it’s that older generations made it look easy. Maybe it’s self-inflicted expectations that I can and should be able to do it all. Sometimes, I operate on a week-by-week basis, and it’s sometimes one breath at a time.

So far, this year’s busy season has been one of the better ones. Maybe it’s that my kids are older and more self-sufficient, or maybe it’s the short winter we’ve had (knock on wood), but nevertheless, I haven’t found myself near the deep end this year. There are still hard days, but it’s been mostly on the positive side.

I don’t have the answer to make anyone’s busy season easier, but there is some kind of comfort in knowing I’m not alone. Whether you are a spouse, sibling, parent, child or friend of someone in a demanding season of work, I see you, I feel you, I’ve been you.

Jill is a stay-at-home mom who helps part time on her family’s 140-cow dairy farm near Forest City, Minnesota. She and her husband, Aaron, have two children: Hayes and Nash.