Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Strength of Women

I was sitting here reading back through old posts. Man, my life used to be very messy, very hectic, but pretty darn funny. My latest posts seem so sad. Oh well, such is life. Our family has a tough battle ahead of us this year. At the risk of relaying someone else's story (you know how hard I try not to do that) here it goes: my mom has cancer. We found out two weeks ago. Hence, the morose tone of this blog as of late.

The truly hardest part of living with sad or fearful news is that life continues to go on. I can't do what I really want to do, which is get in bed, eat chocolate, cry, and then scream and throw things until I can sleep. Instead, I have dishes to wash, laundry to fold, fluffernutters to prepare, papers to grade, and the list goes on and on. This is a mixed blessing. I am happy for the distraction of messes and chaos, but it is also so exhausting. My downtime is so rare that I find myself breaking down while driving home or right before I collapse into sleep. I walk through the day like a dual person; I do what needs to be done, all while worrying, wondering, what-ifing, and planning. Inside I am screaming, but when I open my mouth I am logical, calm, and soothing. This seems to be a unique talent of women, this dual nature living. I often joke that I wish that I could split into two, I guess that I really can. This multi-tasking, split focus must be an evolutionary perk of womanhood. Of course it can backfire.

My birthday was the day after I found out. I had to sit through day 2 of bully prevention training and no one knew it was my birthday. These days birthdays are really not a big deal. Of course, this was the year that my girls decided to try to really celebrate. I trudged home exhausted and headachy, to find the house full of happy birthday signs, fresh baked cake, and a crown for the birthday girl. I just couldn't do it. I begged off and Rob looked at me like I was a monster. Some days, it is just too hard to fake it. Other days though, I am able to "Fake it until you make it." Lily's birthday was a completely different story. Just this past weekend I forced myself to make the pink Hello Kitty cupcakes, ignored the "they look like pigs" comments, went to bed, woke up, took both girls to the rec center pool for Lily's party (Rob couldn't go, he lost a filling in his front tooth the night before), made sure that Lily and her friends had a great time, and went home to crash.

My biggest worry is that I get so caught up in the day to day of life that I loose track of what is really important. I don't want to loose the sight of the special moments.

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