Rainbow on the Other Side

They say the bigger the storm, the brighter the rainbow.

And maybe that’s true. The dark, heavy clouds don’t mean everything is ruined—they’re usually just clearing out the noise so something better can take its place. A rainbow only looks that bright because of the dark sky sitting right behind it, and maybe these messy, chaotic days are just making room for a little extra light.

Right now, I am waiting on that rainbow. Because lately, it feels like I’ve been living under a localized thunderstorm of my own making.

These past few weeks, I’ve been making mistake after mistake. I forget the important stuff—the crucial, time-sensitive, life-admin stuff—and instead, my brain holds onto completely useless trivia. The physical and emotional weight of pushing through difficulties while keeping everything floating, of sorting out messes, and spending way too much time on things that don’t even matter anymore.

I’ve been trying so hard to fix myself, to work on myself, that I think I might have accidentally broken the machine.

Normally, my days are etched into my brain like permanent fixtures. Tattoos on the mind:

• 05:45 — Wake up.
• 07:00 — School run.
• 07:45 — Back home. Coffee, chores, go, go, go until 10:00.
• 10:00 — Meetings, work, sticking to the carved-out routine.
• 18:00 — Cook dinner.
• 19:30 — Everyone in winding-down mode so my son is asleep by 20:00.

Once he’s finally asleep, my husband and I catch a breath. We read, watch a program, catch up on work, or just share a quiet cup of tea.

And then tomorrow, the record scratches, and it starts all over again.

The problem isn’t the routine. The problem is when the routine shifts by five minutes.

My brain simply refuses to accept rescheduled times. I write the new time down. I think about it a million, gazillion times. And then? I still miss it.

And don’t get me started on the school sports schedules. Today, practice is at 16:00. Tomorrow, it’s moved to 14:00. Some kids are doing hockey from 13:00 to 14:00, cricket from 14:00 to 15:00, cross country from 15:00 to 16:00, and somewhere in between, there’s choir, debate, and the spelling bee.

I have one boy, and I am going crazy while trying to stay updated. I look at the moms with two or three kids and wonder what kind of dark magic they are practicing to stay sane.

Then there are the school WhatsApp groups. Oh, the groups.

A endless stream of pinging: complaints about practice times, schedule clashes, reminders for school fees, bake sales, concert tickets, participation fees… It never stops. My brain is fried. I’ve started wondering if I need memory tablets, more water, zero sugar, less screen time, or just to scrub my floors until my arms fall off.

When I was in high school and had a crush on a boy, my mom used to tell me I had “muis neste”—mouse nests.

Direct translation: mouse nests in your head. It means you’re so distracted, so busy daydreaming, that you can’t concentrate on a single practical thought.

That’s me right now. Except I don’t have a crush.

I just have a brain full of noise, clutter, and sticky notes that keep falling off the wall, while feeling sorry for the dead plants in the garden and staring at the broken toilet.

And the hardest part of this storm isn’t the missed times or the chaotic schedules. It’s the feeling that I’ve been a disappointment to myself lately. Upsetting the people around me—my husband, my son, my mom, my friends.

The truth is, I’m a giver and a helper. That’s who I am. But lately, I’ve been giving away the exact parts of myself that I needed to keep. I’ve been spending so much time keeping everyone else floating that I forgot how to swim.

I keep telling myself to do better, to be better, to focus. But maybe you can’t force a storm to stop by yelling at the rain.

Maybe the brain fog is just a sign that the cup is still empty, and trying to refill it with sheer willpower doesn’t work.

The sun will set tonight, and it will rise again tomorrow. The clouds will clear eventually, and the rainbow will show up. In my case, I’m just hoping my brain wakes up and decides to join the party.

Until then, I’m going to set a few extra alarms on my phone, and give myself a little grace – maybe sit in the naughty corner untill I stop feeling guitly, sad and angry at myself.

And hopefully, I’ll turn into that rainbow and shine a little brighter than before.

Sometimes we measure our self-worth against an impossible standard—trying to keep an etched schedule running like clockwork while simultaneously giving away every spare piece of our energy to help everyone else stay afloat. When the brain fog rolls in and take over, it isn’t a personal failure or a sign that you’re broken. It’s your system firing a flare to let you know you’ve run out of fuel.

A few quiet truths to hold onto:

• Grace over perfection: The world won’t fall apart if a schedule shifts, a meeting is rescheduled, or a shirt is a little too tight.
• You can’t pour from an empty cup: Being a giver is a beautiful thing, but you have to save enough of yourself for yourself.
• Imperfection is just life happening: Kids grow out of clothes overnight, WhatsApp groups will always be chaotic, and some days your brain is just going to be two raccoons in a trash can.

The rainbow isn’t about suddenly getting everything 100% right tomorrow. It’s about realizing that even in the middle of the mess, you are doing enough, you are enough, and we can try again later or tomorrow.