Couldn’t Be Much More From the Heart

As you may know from two weeks ago, I always have songs picked out 1-2 months in advance to match up with my Friday posts. I used to choose songs last minute and randomly, or however I felt on any given week, but this approach allows me to write under a theme. It’s a song prompt, and it’s up to me to make the connections needed. Nothing Else Matters? That’s a bit of slam dunk, so much so, that it’s almost too good, isn’t it? This week, like all weeks, is a BIG WEEK. On Monday, I had to drive to Mohegan Sun for a fundraising donut pickup. On Tuesday, well, it was Halloween! Then on Wednesday, Sawyer had shots, it SNOWED, Rider was finally well enough to go back to daycare, and I had a big dental procedure. Thursday (the day I mostly wrote this post) found me with therapy, and tomorrow? Well, tomorrow is the entrance to another fall weekend.

There’s being fried, there’s being REALLY fried – all nerve endings and scattered thoughts – but then there’s the kind of fried that actually sounds stupid when you hear yourself describing it to someone. It’s just.. stupid. Sure, it’s the lives we have and chose, of four kids and three dogs, and joking lightheartedly (or darkheartedly, but still joking) about alpacas and two more puppies. So our days have struggles, like Rider being upset that I walked into his room this morning, and it was not Cassidy. Scarlet and I argued over time/lunch packing. Cassidy and I were both sleepless in the middle of the night. I was sleepless because he was. I wasn’t worried, restless, or thinking dark thoughts. And hoping he wasn’t either. So, I decided to be productive. I didn’t know if it was 4:00am or 6:00am but it was 2:00am. I decided I could lie in bed and be tired the next day with work to do. Or I could do work in bed and be tired the next day, but have less work to do.

I think a lot about breakthroughs. Like how sad Rider was when he saw me this morning, and not Cassidy. Sometimes I just have to get out of my head. We all have different love languages and actions. Learning to speak another language is hard, but amazingly productive. He wouldn’t stop crying, and that was making his coughing and nose running worse. So I laid him down and wiped his nose. That tiny act of love and care changed him. He stopped crying and looked me in the eye. He became cheerful. I gave him a big breakfast and then he snuggled up on the couch with me while I worked, making sure our arms or legs were touching at all times. Through loud airplanes and dogs. Sawyer interruptions. “Remember this.” Rough times come back, maybe even five minutes from now, but the breakthroughs are possible, attainable, and worthwhile.

When you lay out the flesh and bone and frayed nerve endings of one single, full week, with dental appointments and shots and holidays and therapy and kids who need coats and food shopping and collecting the eggs and dogs taking dumps on the pavement and math tutoring and yo yo club and daycare and getting quality time with everyone, or at least someone, you also then take into consideration all of the odds and ends and rumbles under the surface. Like separation anxiety and tension, toddlers who don’t prefer you, and toddlers who do, old and new fears and haunts and phobias, and how it all ties in with aging, puppies, chaos, and deep love.

All of the little odds and ends and oddities and endings lead somewhere. The numbness and the not being in the mood for things and the needs for rest all lead somewhere. It’s the problem solving you do, whether alone, in therapy, or with a partner or teacher. It means something and it leads to somewhere. Something and somewhere. And I know that and I love gaining the tools to cope with that, manage it, and to take it personally, but not too personally. It’s about taking it. In and out. Even when it seems like hope is low, that you’re calling it in, that you’re having an off day or an off week, that you’re hibernating, or slipping through the cracks. It’s all part of some beautiful process. The process of you. All of the beauty and meaning and process and progress.