I've Seen Better Days...

While I cannot rival Mrs. Fuzz's recent bout with kidney stones and craziness, this last week has not been the best.  I suppose I could write my list and say "this went wrong" or "that was bad" but it would mostly be whining and complaining and, well... pointless.

It's been a week that cannot be categorized. Between lack of sleep, illnesses, worries, conflict, and weather that has sprung from spring to winter, and autumn and summer in between, well, who can categorize it!?!?  So while trudging through life with the weight of too many things on my heart, I've come away with two helpful thoughts.  Not totally original ones, but they are getting me through the days.  Of course, with three small people in tow at all times, the most basic saving grace is: "The days are long but the years are short."

I find it easier to live until bedtime when I realize that I most absolutely must live in this moment. I will never have this moment back again.  I had a friend in college who listed the number of seconds on the back of her front door with a catchy phrase that you will never have another one of those seconds back -- ever -- and to make every one of them count today.  It's the same idea.  I may be wishing for sun while it storms outside.  I'll get my sun.  Not today, perhaps, but it will come.  And when it does come, I will wish for rain because the water bill is too high.  Instead, I choose to cherish this very moment because it will never come back to me and I want to remember it most sweetly.

As I lay on the floor of my children's room last night, willing the snuffling baby to sleep by shear force of my will, my daughter reached out with her tiny hand to stroke my cheek and search for my hand.  She would shift a bit and then rearrange herself so that she could still reach a few of my fingers and hold on to them.  I always race out of their room as quickly as possible after lights out so I can throw myself on my bed, count the many hours since I awoke and the seemingly-too-few until I must wake again tomorrow.  But last night I didn't.  I cherished their tiny room, crammed with my desk and their clothes and my grandpa's law enforcement cast offs from the 1950s.   That moment will never come back, and some day my daughter may not reach for my hand like that.

But I was there, for that moment, and I will never wish to go back and "re-do" it because I screwed it up so badly.  Other moments, yes.  Last night? Not a chance.