Days like these

When I was in my early twenties, I spent one year  living alone.  It was the first and only time in my life when I did not have roommates or housemates.  I lived in a tiny apartment in a building where the only two souls I knew were my dog and my cockatiel.  My apartment, billed as a 'junior one bedroom,' was so small that I could see everything I owned from any vantage point.  My belongings consisted of flea market finds and hand-me-downs.  It was small and simple, a metaphor for what my life was like back then. 

There are days, and lawd today was one of them, when I long for that little apartment and that simple life so much that I am tempted to pack it all in and go out in search of that old feeling.  I find myself shutting down and turning inward, just to block out everything else for awhile.  These days are few and far between, but when they come, the funk is hard to shake.  Days like today when the kids drive me crazy, the weather makes me feel hopeless, and I drown in the overwhelming knowledge that I am responsible for so much beyond my own happiness. 

Sometimes I get stuck in a rut where I focus on how hard things can be, and how 'nobody told me there'd be days like these.'  How it feels to love my children so fiercely and at the same time, sometimes want to be away from them.  That there would be times when I reacted as harshly to requests to read books as I did to sibling bickering.  Times when I would have to force myself to nod and smile and gush over a newly-drawn picture.  Days when my upbeat husband and I would be so out of sync that I felt like we were living on different planets.  Hours that passed too slowly, bed time seeming unbelievably out of reach.


I remember talking to my mom once awhile back when I was going through a particularly rough season of parenting. She thought for a moment, and then offered a heartfelt "Surprise!" which makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Tonight, I will remind myself of the pieces of today that I wouldn't trade for even a week of solitude in my tiny old apartment.  Reading to the kids around the dinner table; snuggling under a blanket with Dave to watch The Descendants; explaining to Casey that No, humans do not lay eggs; hugging my oldest child who is suddenly less of a little boy and more of a little man; listening in as Keller gave Marley pointers on dribbling a basketball and riding a bike. These are the things that make my 'here and now' so much better than my 'there and then.'