Chaos Is My Life

The first full day Drew was home from the hospital, in 2008, we were supposed to go to my parents’ for Father’s Day. After a very unsuccessful night of little slumber, we started preparing for our 5pm evening engagement bright and early in the morning. What we could possibly have needed to do for eight hours to prepare for our departure I’ll never know. We finally left the house at 5:15pm (later than the party actually started). We got half way there when we realized that we had left all the Father’s Day presents at home. Adam and I started hysterically laughing. It seemed as if it were between laughing and crying and at that point laughing won. Unfortunately there were still plenty more times when tears won out.

Today my friend came over with her newborn. We were talking about how hard it is to get some personal time. And her devoted husband was carving out some time for his wife, my friend, by allowing her to go get a leisurely coffee or have a Saturday afternoon nap. As she was talking about the things she longed for, I realized that they were all things I had given up so long ago. Coffee now came in an IV drip or where I open my throat and pour similarly to the way I may have done in college with shots of alcohol. Saturday naps have been overshadowed by yard work, laundry and the birthday party circuit.

My great-grandma used to say that everyone feels their own pain. I recently blogged about how under-rated the challenge of growing your family from one child to two children really is. But the reason I think it is so under-rated is that going from no kids to a baby is so hard! Having a human being completely dependent on you after being responsible for only yourself your whole life is such a shock to the system. As the years pass, the ability to do things for yourself dwindles and you just sorta get used to it. So although I am also deprived of those things she mentioned, I don’t even think twice about it anymore because I’m so used to my life like this.

The good news is that if I ever get an opportunity to slowly drink my coffee or take a nap, it will feel so good. Or I won’t ever know how to slow down my life and actually do those things because I’m so used to life in the fast lane. Anyway you look at it, I will blink and my kids will be grown leaving me all the opportunity for all those leisurely things. And when I’m in that place, I’ll probably be longing for how it is now.