Five years ago, I would have never asked myself such a question. Life was demanding, of course, but I still found time for phone calls, thoughtful e-mails, and my calling card: handwritten thank you notes.
Then came the babies.
Tag: Life
Move Along, Dear
The Gratitude Gospel: Day 11
In our rental, I have the kind of view that most writers would kill to have. A simple wooden desk in front of a wall of windows that look out to a forest (and swamp, though that sounds less picturesque).
If you are a mother, however, the hooting owls and the relentless woodpeckers start to get to you after a little while (at least when a nap is desired).
Small Talk
The Gratitude Gospel: Day 10
Okay, so I’ve missed a few days. The thing about writing about your life is, well, sometimes you just can’t blog about what happens in your day.
Small things happen that no one else will find interesting.
Big things happen that you can’t really share…at least not at the given moment in time.
But today, I was reminded of the deep love I have for something so fleeting in our technology-mediated world: face-to-face small talk.
Working Hard for No Money
The Gratitude Gospel: Day 9
Lately, I’ve been thinking about jobs.
Our rental has become a bit of a fishbowl in recent days. A deck is being built outside. Shirts, as we have learned, are optional.
The whole environment is strange until you consider that the beings clanging around our home are humans. They have families, too. And when they work long hours after a long day of work, they leave them behind.
No Mosquito Bites
The Gratitude Gospel: Day 1
If you know me in real life, you’ve probably heard me complain about the mosquitoes at our short-term home. They eat the children alive, even with bug spray. We are lucky to escape a 20-minute outdoor adventure with less than 8 bites EACH.
Yesterday a trending weather pattern continued: rain. Frankly, I wanted to kick nature in the pants. So we hooded and booted up. No puddle was safe.
When You Can’t Push
I’m a bit of an agenda pusher. In college, for example, I saw marriage as my opportunity to no longer be scared in bed each night. For whatever reason, I feared the darkness.
That is, until I read a magazine article with the perfect antidote. It told me to call out one word three times: Jesus. It worked.
My husband and I will celebrate eight years of marriage this summer, and I must confess that when he travels, I still chase the invisible monsters away with a single name.
What’s harder, however, is quieting the other demons that persist in adulthood. The anxiety. The doubts. The dread of not knowing the future.
Quite simply, the walls we can’t easily push through.
Closing Time
Life has been full of goodbyes lately. And, you know, they never really get easier.
Today we part ways with our home – the first address that belonged to just us. The only home our children have ever known.
The Critic Who Matters
“Doesn’t cancel class enough.” -Anonymous College Student
This week is my least favorite of the semester: evaluations. An honest reflection of a course has slowly become the equivalent to an angry tweet.
A Sobering Swim
Two. The number of times I have almost drowned.
The first episode involved one of the only adopted children I knew growing up. His birth mother had been an addict. His psychology was frail. But I was a fighter and broke free from his attempts to submerge me permanently in water.
I should have internalized the bigger lesson: steer clear of the deep end.
Wagging Goodbye
When my husband and I started dating, I was a single mother. A Yorkshire terrier puppy named Wharton had stolen my heart just two months prior.
In the midst of graduate school and multiple jobs, I think owning a dog gave me permission to be maternal. At 22, I was nowhere near ready to have children.
But I liked to think that one day it still might happen. A dog, I believed, would give me practice.
And, it’s true, I endured all of the frustrating stages required of little creatures.
Bladder control (often in the wee hours of morning).
Destruction of property.
Boundaries.
If I’m honest, I think my dog represented something even deeper: my fear of being alone.
