The thing is, when my day starts to wind down and I am alone with just my thoughts...well, that is when I realize that...I actually have them...thoughts that is. Seems like an obvious statement, but my days are crazy, so crazy that sometimes I feel like a hamster running on a wheel. From the moment my feet hit the ground in the morning, I run, and I don't stop until the last cherub is deep in slumber....and sometimes not even then.
My life is so full, so wonderful, and so different from what it was when I first sat down to compose this blog. So much has changed. For one thing, Three isn't the New Five anymore....Five is. Sometimes Six. When I began writing I had just given birth to my third child, and I was amused at the reactions I would get from the general public when I was out and about with the three of them, like I had just stepped off of a circus train or something, as if having three small children was some amazing feat (although I do admit that when I would maneuver through the supermarket with my two shopping carts - pushing one with an infant carrier in the basket and a two year old in the seat, and pulling another with a four year old in the seat and a basket full of groceries it may have been a bit entertaining to watch). Now I get my kicks when people see me out with just the baby and smile at the sweetness of an infant, then turn and gently ask if this is my first, and I tell them "no, I have six". The reaction is awesome - totally worth the c-section scars, resulting hernias, sleepless nights and grey hairs that have come along with having a bona-fide large family.
Also, when I started to write this blog I was happily married - or so I thought, until my husband of ten years decided to turn his back on our marriage and pursue a relationship with a woman whom I had considered to be a best friend. Yeah. That happened. Now, I AM happily married. I survived the darkest time and I have found my actual, real-deal, cant even believe it's true, because I am never doing that again - soul mate...and...I made him my husband!
With all of this going on you would think that I have had plenty of material to write about. And I have, I do. However, writing is for me, a lot like birthing a child. You have it inside of you, growing, but that baby comes when it is ready to come. Words have an indeterminate gestation period. Sometimes, I have to push, I have to get them out no matter how messy it is. Other times, they get very comfortable where they are and so they stay on the inside a little longer. Also...writing takes time and energy. Things which are in short supply in my day.
My life is crazy. I have five beautiful babies of my own, and another who came as part of the "new husband package" - and whom I love just as much, my "bonus- son". Six altogether. My husband loves me, adores me. He supports me in everything I do, and builds me up daily. Not a day goes by that he doesn't tell me that he loves me, or that he is so happy that his daughter has me as her Mom. I feel so loved and cherished. It is a lot of work, five and sometimes six kids. Sometimes I want to pull my hair out, or run back to bed the minute the bus pulls away from the curb. My laundry pile is gargantuan. My dishwasher is industrial. It is messy and loud and chaotic and busy. I am pretty sure that I would earn a gold medal in the olympic sport of multi-tasking, given the chance. I am grateful that God has given me the chance to live this life though, because I love it. It is a challenge, and I rise to it, every single day.
Lately what I have been noticing is that when my head hits the pillow at the end of the night, after the dishwasher is loaded, the laundry switched, the homework corrected, the carpools complete, after I check the calendar for the next day's craziness...the words start to kick around in my head. I am tired. It is quiet...finally...and the computer was left downstairs. So, I let the words form in my head and make empty promises to myself that I will write tomorrow, but tomorrow always has it's own chaos and before I know it my head is back on the pillow and the sentences of yesterday have vanished with the night. Another day has come and gone...and while I was busy doing for everyone else...where was the "me" in it? I am not a selfish girl...(unless you are talking about dessert because then yes, I am taking the last piece of pie, too bad!)....but we all need to do something for ourselves now and then. Writing is for "me". I have had friends and "fans" trying to encourage me to get back to writing, for them I am grateful, because although it may have seemed otherwise, their encouragement did not fall on deaf ears, but is always there rattling around among the words in my head.
Life is hard. Lord that is one thing I know. However, life is wonderful, and life is short. And so, today I am reclaiming this blog as mine...for me if for no one else. I am The Mom. The Wife. As my husband says "The Glue". But tonight, and with any luck for the forseeable future, I am Tricia, The Blogger.
1 comment:
So excited you are back. Looking forward to more stories. You have always been very helpful at putting life in perspective. Feeling blessed. .. because I a friend & a big fan!
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