The View From Here

The emotions of the past week left me feeling a wee bit wrung out. I imagine you feel the same.

But I get to spend my whole day with these faces:

Did you know that I actually really love being a mother? Yeah, I didn’t really know that until tonight. Holding Shaggy—or trying to, anyway—as he had his last bottle of the day, it dawned on me that this is the best gig I’ve ever had.

Way better than folding T-shirts at Gap. A job from which, by the way, I was fired. That says something deeply troubling about me, but it’s too late and I’m too tired to figure it out.

My day was consumed with practical matters like procuring toilet paper and putting out the recycling. I handled the bedtime deftly, despite parenting solo while Mr. C is off trying to impress the muckety-mucks.

I wrote something very, very hard to write. Something that feels too close, and all the more reason for me to be the one to write it. It was a task I was happy to have.

I’m tired, but it’s a good kind of tired. The kind of tired you feel after a hard day’s work, or a hard day’s play. I will sleep well and wake up to do the same thing again, tomorrow, with a pediatric dentist appointment thrown in for spice.

My life has never been more mundane, more pedestrian. And yet, every morning this week I woke up eager to put feet to the floor.

I told a friend today that it’s all good. That no matter what happens, I am focused on living through the day, and the day after that, without looking ahead. And without bile.

Here I am, in this middle time. I can’t face forward yet, and the urge to look back is dissipating. I’m nose-to-nose with the present, and the view from here looks pretty good so far.

And you? How’s your view?