Day: April 22, 2007

The following is from Mental Tesserae “Why I Cry” I wish I’d written it. It is beautiful and so very true:

I’m standing alone in a stairwell looking down at all the steps I’ve taken.I’ve married a great man, given birth to four wonderful children,accomplished a few impressive things along the way like collecting college degrees, running half-marathons, finishing some quilts. But some of those other steps below me represent regrets – the petty things I’ve said and done, the projects I’ve started but not finished, the many ways I’ve screwed up my kids (because God knows they’d still be perfect if it weren’t for the bad habits I’ve let them develop). And above me the stairs continue to ascend with mocking regularity. I rest my arm on the railing and prepare for the rest of the climb – the next step, next day, the next batch of laundry. But for now I pause in the light of the landing that is the present moment and I take a deep breath. And sometimes I cry just a bit.

The key word here is the very first one,”Sometimes.” There are other times when life is invigorating and interesting and joyful. But on the days when life is like a long flight of stairs, this is how I feel about it.

The ice maker in our fridge leaked again. It warped the hardwood underneath it and ran down a wall in the basement. I am ready to tear off the water line and tie it in a knot. Having ice dispensed from the fridge is nice, but it is a very expensive luxury if it costs us $1000 every couple of years to sand and refinish warped hardwood floors. And we will have to live with the warped floor for 6 months to a year just waiting for it to dry out enough for the work to be done. I hate this. I hate that this is the fourth or fifth time that my plumbing has cost me over $1000 in damages. I hate that it happened on a day that was already bad. I hate that Howard hundreds of miles away and too convention exhausted to talk on the phone for long.

Yesterday Kiki was in a Mood. She was ready to pick a fight with me over the fact that I made two sandwiches for myself so I could save one for later. She didn’t want a sandwich. She didn’t even like the kind of sandwich I made. My extra sandwich caused her no inconvenience whatsoever, but still tried to pick a fight over it. She sat at the kitchen counter, a little lump of pure fury with no target. Her hairbrush bore the brunt of it and now lies in two pieces.

Today Kiki is better. Instead it was Gleek’s turn. She cried on the way to church because her legs were tired. She cried when she didn’t get to pick the bench we sat on. She cried that I didn’t have any food for her to eat. You get the idea. When it came time for her to go to her primary class, she sniffled the whole way there, but was happy after that.

Then it was Patches turn. He’d been happy all during Gleek’s upsets, but when time came for him to go to class, he bawled because he just wanted to be with me. I know that most of the problem was hunger and fatigue. This helps me plan better for future Sundays. For today I just had to tolerate being climbed all over for the next two hours by a bored and tired four year old boy. He craved the comfort of contact, but couldn’t sit still. I wanted nothing more than to be left alone and not touched by anyone.

At least Link has been in a very happy mood for two days. He is glowingly happy because I finally fixed his blankies. He’s been waiting for me to get it done for months.

Hopefully the rest of today can be a little less moody.