Motherhood and Silver Linings
Hi, how was your August? I can’t believe it’s September, but then again I’m the type that wishes summer were twice as long. How has back to school been treating you? Wait, I still want to talk about August. Can we, for a hot minute?
Did it turn out the way you had imagined? I had some grand plans. Though I can say I read more than I had in the entire first half of the year, I think that was the only goal I can honestly check off. My plans for August were to learn a new way to rest. Yup, I deleted Instagram, hence the increase in my good reads library. But I hadn’t planned to be forced to rest quite in the way that I did.
Covid harpooned half my squad on our beach trip across the country. Which turned into me sitting by the water every evening with a book while my husband and son fought the fevers that wrecked our nighttime rituals. On one hand, in my mind someone needed to enjoy the water, and on the other hand I was soaking up energy because I was on duty each night for my son’s 104 fevers.
We cut our two week vacation down to one, flew home once negative, and spent the next week wondering why we didn’t have the energy to jump back into life at home. Fast forward a few days later my older son got swimmer’s ear which kept us out of any type of water activity for 10 days. That was just pure torture for the hot month that Utah planned for August.
Miraculously in the middle of the month my mother who hasn’t flown since the start of covid shows up on my doorstep 2,000 miles away to celebrate my birthday. I cried happy tears. And then a few days later ¾ of our family got diagnosed with strep. My son put it well, “Mommy, I feel like I’m swallowing rocks.”
So I find myself here in bed, taking antibiotics and steroids (so help me God), on a liquid diet, with tissues at the ready literally up my sleeve, having allowed far too much screen time in the last few days, wondering where or when everything went so sideways. Yes, I wanted to rest in August, but I wanted to do it on my own terms!
My father says it’s because I don’t take a daily multivitamin. My mother says I should have seen the doctor right away. My husband is asking that the three of us stay away from him which in my mind translates to single parenting while sick. SPWS. Something I’d never wish on anyone.
I go back again and again to why I love being a mom. Though, I think we get the least amount of sleep, I think we are the most capable of finding the silver lining. Of realizing forces at work are out of our control and no one is coming to the rescue. Like my brother tells me on the ski slopes, “You gotta grab your big girl panties, put your tips up and give her hell.” Right, thanks Greg.
My doorbell rang this evening and I immediately thought, “Oh no! who rings the bell at 5pm. Then crap, I haven’t applied deodorant, combed my hair, or bothered to put my contacts in. Did I shower today, in three days? But it didn’t matter. Soup and bread appeared on my doorstep which friends dropped off. My heart exploded. I cried again, happy tears.
I don’t know how you spent your August. Maybe it was balls to the wall adventure. Maybe, like me, stuff happened that was not in the cards. Maybe you were left wondering what happened to August or on the other hand could not wait to see September roll in.
Dear friends at this stage in the game, on this motherhood journey, it doesn’t really matter. We’re on to September.
