It's Not a Train This Time

Sometimes all the right things just come together at the right time. Prayers you didn't even know you were still praying are answered. You know the kind I mean . . . . the ones that become such a part of you they are like a mantra. . . . until you've forgotten what you were even praying for in the plea to just make it through one more day.

Some of those good things have happened this spring. And for the first time in my married life, I'm being able to legitimately look at taking a year off employment. Don't get me wrong, I will still be plenty busy, but what I won't have is this nagging tiredness that never quite leaves. The ache deep in my hips from jumping out of my car more than seventy times every morning. The edginess I sometimes nearly have to bite through my tongue to swallow. The feeling of being spread so thin that you are sure people can see right through that facade of everything being okay.  The inability to write because my eyes won't stay open long enough to accomplish anything beyond the homework. I don't even know what to say anymore when people ask how I'm doing. Because the truth is that I'm not doing that well. I'm also fully aware that most everything that keeps me burning at both ends and in the middle is entirely of my own choosing. So what can I say? "I'm fine. Everything's fine. We are all good. Things are good. Doing great." Until that hollow reassurance becomes a new kind of mantra to try and kid myself.

But now there is a real light at the end of the tunnel. It feels a little too good to be true now, and there are still some "ifs," and it will be July before I really know for sure . . . . but maybe, just maybe, I will get that year "off." That year I have wanted so many times in the last, well, a long, long time. A year to regain my center and decide how to move forward into the next phase. A year to live and not just survive. Please Father. Help me to make it through one more day. And then a week. A month. Four months. Just four more months.