So. Many. Hats.

In OT school, you learn about identity and the different roles people have in their lives as hats, and how people often switch hats multiple times throughout the day. When I was in grad school, this was a concept I understood generally. But now, seven years in, I understand it on a resoundingly soul-deep level.

In the last five minutes, I went from wearing my "Grad Student Hat" (which I picture as a graduation cap, obviously), to my "Mom" hat (one of those electronic ticker tape signs at the bottom of a 24-hour news cycle that just runs through everything I already forgot, like "diapers to daycare" and "seriously bring diapers to daycare" and "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BRING THOSE DIAPERS TO DAYCARE"), to my "Daughter" hat (don't ask me why, but it's an Easter bonnet) so rapidly that I feel like I have whiplash.

Because as parents, employees, professionals, students, and caregivers, this is what we do all day long. We toggle between roles and responsibilities like our lives depend on it, because they do.

The mental load we each carry from day to day can get so heavy that sometimes all my wife and I can do is hide under the covers and laugh. Because while it sounds like a burden, it's actually a privilege.

It's a privilege to be a parent, and the greatest joy of my life to watch my children grow, misbehave, and delight me with their wonder. It is a privilege to be able to call my dad and ask him why the "suction thingy" on the toilet isn't suctioning anymore. It is a privilege to begrudgingly wake up an hour and a half early so that I can get the kids to daycare the second they open and then arrive at the gym just in time to be five minutes late for an hour-long workout before work.

It is a privilege to live in a body that may not be perfect, but is so badass and beautiful.

So, if you're reading this, and your posture is hunched forward because the weight of your responsibilities is bowing your back, and you're holding three different cups (because water, coffee, and a smoothie, obviously), with your cell phone and your keys in the other hand, and if you just tried to put said cell phone and keys into your pocket but had to stop by the trash because, lo and behold, there's a half-eaten GoGo squeeZ and the Miss Rachel Tonie you've been looking for all week, then hats off to you, my friend.

Cheers to us. And to this beautiful, messy, exhausting, joyful life that is such a privilege to live.