Tuesday

Thankful for:

1. The last glimpses of fall colors.

2. Friends who drop off dinner and other friends who drop off loaves of delicious bread

(especially when they know you can’t cook).

3. Toys that keep a three-year old occupied for more than 10 minutes (thanks Uncle Ryan).

4. Girls growing and realizing that one day they may be each others best friends.

5. Movie night with Audrey. She is the best cuddler.

6. Discovering new songs that just sort of fit the moment.

Hey Brother – Avicci and Dan Tymniski

How does one continue on with a blog entitled “joyful life” when life doesn’t feel so joyful right now?

How do you look up at the world around you when you feel entitled to weeks and months spent hidden under covers?

I’m finding the answer in taking living one day at a time. Slowing down from the incredible force with which this life moves and making myself find joy in every moment.

There are long conversations with neighbors turned friends where they remind you to not turn away.

There are evenings on a treadmill where you are grateful for the lung capacity to keep breathing when your legs are on fire and you heart physically aches.

There are soccer lessons where your middle child shows up and turns out to be the only girl on a team with 11 other boys. Moments spent in awe of that 6-year-old in her head to toe pink taking on the boys, no fear.

There are dear friends who share their good news with hopes it will bring a smile to your face. And it does, because their news makes you feel like life does and will go on.

And there are little girls who make you bracelets to wear so that when you are alone all you need to do is look down and feel them with you.

I am not sure what today holds but I know I will find my pockets of joy.

On a gray day 6 years ago, as the turning of the page added another year to my mother’s life, my father passed away in her arms. The journey of life so starkly juxtaposed together.

For the last 5 passing’s of this day I have let myself sit in it- let myself be absorbed by the numbers on the calender; looking inward and thinking of nothing but my loss and the loss of my family.

This morning, I woke up, hopped on the treadmill and ran a quick three. Somewhere in my slumber I had decided that this October 23 would be different and I would face it down. I would run straight into it.

I think it’s a fitting test of my promise to spend the year looking up spending this day paying attention to all that surrounds me.

Ellie’s calling now. She’s wearing her new Sophia night-night gown and wants to dance at the ball.

I think I have a dance partner waiting.

Walking into this weekend knowing this week I looked up every chance I could; realizing that life smacked me hard with its realities and they were beautiful.

The moment I watched the mom help her child off of the school bus. I was late picking up my own girls from school and frustrated with life, but the sight of the young girl lowered by the contraption designed to help those wheelchair bound leave the bus moved me. The look on the mom’s face welcoming her girl home. Their journey about the long country driveway, mom pushing  wheelchair with one hand and walker with the other.

My Audrey girl looking at me with her bright blue eyes telling me I never have time for her anymore. Pausing, breathing deeply and letting the moment take me. My six-year-old needed me more than those emails, more than that pile of laundry, more than the lame dog needing another round of heating pads and pills.

Sidney hair tangled in a brush and unable to get it out. Scissors in my hands after 30 minutes of unsuccessful attempts to remove it. Frustration from me as this was not my plan for 8:30 on a Tuesday night. Then again the look in the eyes as I tell her we will have to cut it out. The hairbrush finally released and her and I laughing that now she had a bald spot. Too bad I was too absorbed in the moment to take a picture. What a photo for the album that would have made- wooden hairbrush sticking out of a head with giant tears rolling down her face.  Ah but at least we took the moment to laugh.

The weekend is almost here. Thursday is upon me.

The week hit me and I looked up.

I realized that moments were made this week not by actions but by reactions.

We head home this weekend, except now home consists of a hotel room and meals eaten out.

Funny how I still call this place home when I no longer have a “home” there.

We venture back every fall so my girls can feel the place were I spent my formative years.

There will be a trip to Primanti’s were my girls will question how I could possible eat anything that consists of egg, coleslaw, french fries and meat slapped between two pieces of bread.

We will head to the farm where I picked my first pumpkins. The place where my bothers and I always had a contest to see who could pick the biggest pumpkin and carry it back to the car unassisted.

We will venture to the Strip and find crazy, cheap t-shirts that we will wear only once before they shrink down to Ellie’s size.

I will walk down streets that will overwhelm me with memories.

I will feel his presence in the strangest places- the rest stop on Highway 70, watching the leaves in Frick Park and in the smile of the women helping us check out at the market.

I go home just as much for them to know me as I do for them to know him.

I hear his voice reminding me as he often did that home is simply any place we are together.

I don’t doubt that my kids are the most important thing I have done with my life. But, what I have come to terms with is that when I am old and gray they will leave me to start their own journey and I will be left with my dog.

Ziva won’t be that dog that makes it to see my graying years but she will be there to see me through those first tentative years of life with teenagers, when those three girls dip their toes into the waters of independence.

She will sit with me on the night Sid ventures out for the first time with friends unaccompanied by an adult. No doubt she will let me stroke her ears and kiss her nose as I stare down the door waiting for it to open and my first baby to return home.

She will join me on early morning walks as I fret over the growth pattern of my youngest. Are we spoiling her too much?

She will exhale deeply with us when Audrey returns home from another gymnastics meet full of medals but minus the injuries.

She will survive the slamming of doors, the loud music and the repeated attempts to coax sullen girls from rooms.

She will listen to thousands of excuses for how she ate their homework, stole the shirt mom wanted them to wear or chewed through one of their new heels.

She will stand next to me while I make every meal; will dance with me late at night to the Indigo Girls and will comfort me when one of those beautiful little girls turned teenager tells me she hates me.

I read an article once that said dog owners who pet their animals first thing in the morning and the minute they walked in the door at night had significantly lower stress levels. No doubt there will be hundreds of minutes spent petting her over the next 5 years as she helps me to survive what may prove to be the most stressful years of parenting.

No she won’t be the best thing I have done with my life but she will make my life better.

Ziva I owe you. Thanks for hanging out with me.