God, why all the weight? The boys are shifting, stretching, shuddering into new muscles, growth spurts and needs, and I’m feeling I’m running at a loss. I don’t have the time I want with them, and I’m trying to fit everything in and breaking the laws of physics in the process. It’s these times of stress and pressure I wonder if I’m missing some fundamental component that would make it all easier… and have to accept that I’m not missing anything.
I’m not missing anything, because I’m here in my sons’ need for me, even at the ages of 19, 15 and 11 – ESPECIALLY at ages 19, 15 and 11. As much as I’d love (love as in melt into it like a chocolate fondue pot as a spa bath) some time to wrap my head around the demands and pace of nursing study, or the upcoming buzz and frenzy of the boys lives without any other commotion, it just isn’t going to happen. I don’t think that everything happens at once, and I don’t believe God makes everything happen for a reason – but I do believe He can and will make the happening have meaning and purpose, if I ask Him to, or look for it.
But some days I have the gnawing of a headache as soon as I open my eyes because I went to bed far too late, and so hold my eyes away from any light so as not to stir up some more mischief. Some days I’m not looking for God, even hoping I don’t see Him, because I’m tired and I’m cranky and while the last thing I said to Max before I left the house was “I love you!” the thing immediately before that was “Get ready for school NOW!!”
Today Morg and I laughed over the noises Markus was making because the bat had spit on it, and Marko practiced his drawing skill – just a simple sarcophagus, it’s been the one of the many things he likes doing lately, besides practicing magic tricks and shooting air soft guns, and reading and playing with friends.
Maxi laughed this afternoon after the tyrant started calming down, watching conference and practicing his snoring, deciding that each practice he has had this week has left him stronger than the last. He’s wanting to know why he should keep doing drawing in high school, and wants to try out for the USA hockey team, and the constant going and busyness of his need makes when he’s asleep an audible balm of quiet and devout unceasing prayer that I will survive his teens, and that he will as well.
Morg’s facial hair is coming in more and darker – I have no difficulty now seeing under his jaw he's so tall, and realized today that half of his chin hair is brown/ginger. I see nothing of myself in him physically, though someone at school looked at us and said “He’s your son, right? It’s plain as day!” and he grinned and I was caught totally unaware. I love them all beyond all expression, and I know that I can’t do everything I want for them, I screw up at something every single day, and some days are just ridiculously stupid, and others… others have the boys playing army with airsoft on the front porch, sun shooting off their golden skin and grins as they ferociously debate the number of hits each can withstand from a pistol, and Max uses Molly as a secret weapon, laughing til he cries at the carnage and look on Marko’s face at being so royally and imaginatively trounced by his big brother.
I ate too many blueberry pancakes today, and they were perfectly crisp, staying soft inside. I ate too many, because I was tired and they were there and I wanted/needed a cry but Max needed me, so we drove to hockey together and let the Sunday morning light paint our car as we laughed and did a whole lot of nothing together.
Some days I don’t want to talk to God because I’m already suffering one kind of stiff-necked-ness and the light chases me wherever I turn, and I hope I don’t see Him because when I’m tired I’m cranky, which manifests as smartaleckey and sarcastic, and I love Him too much (mostly) to keep it to myself. Those days – like today – I know He loves me because He stays out of my way, so I don’t have to see Him, or deal with His love, because love complicates absolutely everything and makes you an addict, especially when it hurts like breaking just from trying. Those days, like today, I know He loves me because He stays where I can’t see Him, and still has my back. Those days, like today, He stays away from me, and instead stands next to the choir as they sing I am a Child of God, and watches Max wash his hands and come give me a damp soapy hug. Then helps me cry when they’re all in bed, sleeping.
Some days I feel happy and lonely at exactly the same moment. I’m extraordinarily delighted to be back at school, to feel my brain rise from hibernation and crack its jaws wide, ready. The boys are a bizarre wonder and a delicious delight, and being their Mom is the purpose to my days, the chaos to my evenings, the smile lines I carry with me. I love and I worry and I pray constantly that I’m doing better than I catastrophise and fear. And I think I am.
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| {Max and team at the USA Hockey headquarters last weekend.} |
