The Smoke has Cleared

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December 10, 2007

The Smoke has Cleared

I feel like I have been brought a long ways since my last two posts. Last weekend I was at a place where I could not see light at the end of the very long tunnel. My eyes were drawn to the negative. Then I had a "tough-lovin'" kind of talk with my husband who calmly and matter-of-factly said, " You are always trying to fight things." And, crack-crack, shatter-shatter, drop-drop, it was like the scales fell from my eyes. I said, "You're right." That is what I do, and what I have been doing for a LONG time. And when he said it plain as day like that, and I accepted it and agreed, it seemed that the fighting was over, and this deep-seeded (sp?) tension just released from my body and soul. Why was I trying to keep control over poopy-diapers and naptimes and accidental messes? I really don't know--it isn't like anyone but me was keeping score. So all of a sudden my "job" has become tons easier because I don't count it as a defeat when I finally get everyone loaded into the van and realize that I forgot the sippy cups, or that someone needs a diaper change. It was the most real conversation Duffy and I have had in quite a while and it was refreshing to feel like true friends again, and not just two co-workers in the task mill that I had turned our home into. It was good for both of us that I had this eye-opener, because I'm sure he couldn't have lived with me much longer trying to keep the whole family, him included, neat and tidy in my little plans for each day. So when I was driving Owen home from a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's today I had to crank this Sarah Maclachlan song because I felt that it was right on for how I feel about my amazing husband,

"Every time I look at you the world just melts away
All my troubles all my fears dissolve in your affections
You've seen me at my weakest but you take me as I am
And when I fall you offer me a softer place to land

You stay the course you hold the line you keep it all together
You're the one true thing I know I can believe in
You're all the things that I desire, you save me, you complete me
You're the one true thing I know I can believe

Your love is just the antidote when nothing else will cure me
There are times I cant decide when I cant tell up from down
You make me feel less crazy when otherwise I'd drown
But you pick me up and brush me off and tell me I'm OK
Sometimes thats just what we need to get us through the day"

LOVE that song and the whole CD really.

So, thank you to those of you who offered words of encouragement and WISDOM. I will continue to need those things on this journey, because I know there are at least a million other ways that I am currently blind. The best thing that I learned through this was that I could have this mind and heart-altering realization and make life changes, but still be me. I think that before I was afraid to see because I wouldn't know how to go on as a different person, how to become someone else. But I don't think that is the way it is. I think we can be made aware of flaws and errors in our thinking and living, change it, and still be who we are in our core, just better--which makes accepting and learning lessons a whole lot less scary.

I am back to loving being home with my kids. Here are some recent pics of our little friends.