My best used to be much more than just good enough. My best used to be fabulous.

Since becoming a parent, my best is never good enough at home, at work, at school…in life overall. And that feels awful.

I used to submit before deadlines. Now I have no control over time and am late with work.

I used to speak articulately. Now the most basic vocabulary eludes me.

I used to balance everything from budgets to fitness, academia to consulting. Now I am being thrown off the teeter-totter daily by the overwhelming ball of regurgitated mess that is my life.

I used to bob and weave and take curve balls as they came. Now I can’t come up with an appropriately disastrous sports cliche to express my being clocked in the melon hourly by all the foul balls thrown at me.

I used to have self confidence borne of deliberate effort and measurable success. Now I fake it until I’m called a big ol’ liar, which is pretty much daily.

And most of my communications—text, email, post, and letter—have errors I don’t find until hours after the message is sent.

Who the hell am I? And how much worse will it get?