Dark December Days

I'm still trying hard not to Grinch.

It's not easy.  The lists of things to get done are getting longer and Christmas is getting closer.

Treats get made and devoured.  Sometimes meals are happening according to the plan and sometimes it's soup and crackers because no one can stand to eat.

Sickness lingers in our house.  It seems someone is always sniffling or sneezing or coughing.  One of us is very sick.  I feel like we are playing that balancing game, how long can we wait to see if the recovery comes before we go off to the clinic again or worse.

Some days are spent in frenetic activity, both holiday and regular.  We keep going on the merry-go-round of sports and homework.

In between we scour the place for the next round of new workers, hoping for grace and praying this isn't "wasted" effort in another "case" that will "unravel".  It shouldn't.  All things point to the promised and promoted "happy ending" and yet, that weight in the pit of the soul that says, don't hold on too tight yet, not just yet...remember Little One.

Pause and wonder, what kind of little boy has Little One turned into...what does he look like now?  If he were here would he be rocking a mow-hawk too?  Would he be begging for Bey Blades and iSomethings?  Would he be leaving the tree all candy cane sticky too?

The book is printed on paper, all punched and bound in my "working" binder.  That's where it lays.  There is no minute for that right now.

My minutes are stolen by electronic things.  Easy for children to use, a beast for me to charge and preset before the big opening.  Intuitive to a child, brags the packaging.  A simple video to walk you through the set up, teases the machine when it blinks to light.  3 hours and a migraine later, I want to grab a hammer.  We don't share the same intuition I'm afraid.

I listen to the distant whine of how I've been the bad friend and so on.  I kept my sanity.  I did what I thought wisest.  I am not perfect.  Perhaps, you will say, I have not followed the rules and I should be insert whatever religious cliche you prefer here.  It goes in many directions this fickle life.  I find this time of year especially, I linger sometimes in the nostalgia of friends now grown distant or gone.  I wonder when or if I will see them again.  I wonder what the conversation will feel like.  I stretch my brain back years and years to see if I can remember the "incident" or if perhaps time and space just slipped between us and pushed us apart.

Often I think about the blog, the writing.  There are little wisps of false brilliance in the quiet fog just touching the shores of sleep.  They creep up, like something seen running from the corner of your eye, then gone.

Every season, I am more stretched, more exhausted.  Each season, thinking it is just a little further.  Another week or two of pushing on, taking one more step, finishing one more task and then.  Then relief will come.  Rest will come.  It will be spring or fall.  The holiday will be over or school will be ending.  Routine will begin again or the chaos of some event or vacation will end and then...and then.

Yes.  I picked this life.  I chose it.  I pick and choose it now.  Yes.  I could stop.  I could change things.  I won't though.  It is good.  It is mine.  I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing.  Tired is not so bad.  Way worse would be bored.