It’s crazy how quickly we forget. Within months we forget the pain of childbirth, within years we forget the mind-numbing theme song to their favorite show, by the time our kids have moved on to the next stage we have forgotten the last.
My teenage daughter recently had surgery (don’t worry, she’s fine… I think) and since it had been more than decade, I had somehow forgotten what it felt like to be shoulders deep in a vortex of someone else’s needs, someone else’s very survival. I had four kids in the span of seven years, I lived in the vortex for
half my life. It’s amazing to me that I could have possibly forgotten, but somehow I did. My mind chose to block it out, thank God.
So for the last several weeks I have been sucked back in, unable to so much as shower without first arranging the care and needs of another human. I had really started taking for granted sleeping through the night and eating a meal that’s not consumed standing up over the kitchen sink. It’s crazy how when you’re in the vortex you can do literally everything all day and still hit the bed at night realizing you accomplished absolutely nothing.
Once I realized this was going to be my reality at least temporarily these last few weeks, I embraced it. And soon enough I came to appreciate what the vortex gives me- so much chaos and barely keeping my head above water that somehow I am released from my normal to-do lists and productivity goals and basic hygiene and workout regimen, etc etc. Having no control and being unable to plan anything at all beyond the next 30 minutes, I was free to be in the moment. There was nothing more pressing or urgent for me to attend to than being right here, right now- watching a movie with my daughter and rubbing her back. Her immediate needs were the only thing on my to-do list.
It was refreshing to get out of my own head and let go of all these things I assign a false sense of urgency to. And guess what? I didn’t get right back to everyone who messaged me, and I delegated way more than I ever have before. I didn’t check all the boxes that my brain tells me I have to check, and guess what happened? Nothing. Nothing bad happened. Now pretty soon life will go back to normal, but hopefully with a renewed appreciation for what I have, for the stage I am in, and for the moments I have left with my baby girl before she flies the coop.