love.
I was having a DAY.
It was the Tornado’s LAST DAY of any kind of summer camp.
And there were thirty one more days until school began.
And I was panicking.
I had two hours left of Summer 2013 childcare & the inside of my brain resembled this:
what do I do? work? play? walk the lake? go to the gym and lift weights? wait. I dont belong to a gym here. join a gym and life weights? that would take forever. get coffee and just sit here relaxing? wait. I need to do something I cant do with her around. I should work. but I want coffee. and I want to savor these final two hours not squander them on work. I should go to the gym and lift. oh yeah I dont belong to a gym here…
I was feeling self-created pressure to LOVE! EMBRACE!! my final moments without child, yet I was less *savoring* & more wallowing in a pool of PANIC.
I received a text which read, essentially, hey! where are you? do you have a moment? I wanna stop by!
You’d think —as I sat isolated in my frazzle—Id have responded:
yes! come! I’m freaking out!
I did not.
I’m woman enough to admit my first thought (and embarrassingly first text) was something along the lines of:
Im so frazzled. I dont know I can share any of my last childfree moments with you.
What I longed to say was:
Im feeling hopeless (husband gone all month + no childcare = nary a moment for me) and youre butting in on my final solo time.
(With hindsight I am horrified. As we’ve discussed on the book of the face, however, I never “whitewash” my life. I’m flawed as we all are.)
After a few texts I told my friend where I was with the added selfish-but-true caveat of Im here now but leaving really soon. Im going to do *something* just for me.
(Cue another with-hindsight-CRINGE & add in ramblings about it being 20/20)
You see, my friend didn’t want to steal my last smidge of me-time (hangs head).
My friend needed not a THING from me.
My *tenacious* friend asked for fast face-time because she wanted to give me something.
She knew I’d shed my strength and just sought a few moments of my time to give me hope.
And after she did I was speechless.
In that moment, this woman who never ceases yammering couldnt find words (for this post or) for her friend.
In my head (as my friend hurried away to continue *her* busy day & I sat semi-stunned with HOPE happily hung around my neck) I returned a line from the piece of cinematicwonderment known as Fools Rush In:
My getting KEYED with hope was everything I never knew I always needed right in that very moment.
And, in words I still cant find to capture what I felt, Ive return to one not used often as of late:
understood.
comments are closed. please take that time & do a kindness/bestow hope on someone in your life. Im finally ready to share the HOPE and am hitting the streets of Oakland to do so.