monster

My train rides a silent meditation, quiet moments in which I reflect about it all, the kids, the work, the home, our partnership.  All of it changing rapidly but not seeming to in the difficult moments.  It's in the hardest times, kids pushing limits, or getting sick, the grown ups having unmet needs and negotiating it all, that it's hard to remember how fleeting it is.  That tomorrow things will be different.  That good or bad doesn't really matter. That it's wonderful to soak in the tub with my baby kicking his legs wildly, my daughter screeching with laughter.

These words are from my girl, Melissa. I read the passage three times as I took deep breaths of appreciation, giving her solid fist pumps of so-right-there-with-ya from my quiet room in a frozen state to her urban lair with three sweet babies.  I'm struggling this week.  Jeffy's at a conference.  The snow is insane.  Work is full.  Solomon is pushing my limits like a wild man.  Every transition is a battle.  I feel myself folding and caving with him at every turn, then rapidly regretting it later.  For every time I give in to him, I seemingly get some sort of break. 

So I say yes so that I can do what I need to do for me.  And then after that little battle is laid to rest, it's time for another transition. And there's another freak-out.

Kelli came for a brief stint which was lovely.  She is so good at playing with my kids, getting on the floor with them, loving them up.  I feel about 100 years old when I watch her with them.  I don't feel like I do that enough -- wrestle on the carpet, chase them in circles.  I just feel so spent most evenings.  So depleted.  I have answered so many damn questions.  I have tried for so long to keep things creative and motivational and new.  Subsequently when I'm home, I feel kind of like a stale raisin.

That said, I know my kiddos love me.  I know that I am doing the best I can right now.  And that best involves Solomon's obsession with Wild Kratts.  And I guess that's gotta be okay. That best involves Eliana saying things like, "Every night there has got to be a fight with you and Solomon or Solomon and Daddy.  I'm just so tired of all the fighting."  Knife to my heart.  Suck from my gut.  Why are things so hard right now?  Why does he have to call me a Stupid Butt when I don't let him have what he wants?  Why do I care so much?

It's hard for me to deeply internalize the notion that good or bad doesn't matter.  I have a little guilt monger who has sat heavily on my shoulder for most of my life.  She keeps me in line and beats me down.  She makes me both lovely and insane.  We are working on our relationship.  I'm ready to let her go.  We've been together for two weeks shy of forty years.  I'm kinda over her.

So here's to my best as I welcome a new decade.  Here's to the love that I know my children feel when all is said and done, after the battles and the elephant tears.  After my intense frustrations and elevated exasperation.  

I often think about my own childhood and how insane it was.  Lots of chaos and siblings, working parents, my fair share of television and a lot of fighting.  But at the end of the day, holy toledo, did my parents love the heck out of me.  I never questioned their devotion, their adoration.  I never judged my mom for hiring a babysitter.  I knew nothing but her days in the office, my dad at the hospital before the sun was up.  I knew my reality and it was all I had.  I was loved. 

  

In my fourth decade, I'm ready to really embrace (as opposed to just writing about it again and again...) who I am as a mama.  Just as I embraced the cold yesterday with a lunch-break walk on Jumbo, my mountain white in a way I've never experienced her.  At one point I was knee deep in soft snow just laughing.  Laughing that I ever found myself in this wild place.  Laughing as I thought of my family and how foreign this whole weather thing is to all of them.  Laughing at my wet boots and the sting in my ears as the cold wind hit my hearing aids.  Laughing at my frustrations and exhaustions, my little victories and litany of ridiculous internal grievances.  Laughing as I stared into the absurd and perfect sun, the blue of the sky, the white crystal of snow and said, breathtaking.