balance

Blissfully bumping along in my no worry day I was jolted back to reality by a call from the school nurse. Nothing stops a heart faster than fearing your child is hurt or worse. My mother always warned me of these feelings proclaiming, "you'll understand when you have children". Well now I have one, a boy and boy oh boy she wasn't wrong. It's bad enough fearing the phone call, but boys are just dumb. Boys do stupid things because that's just how they're made. They play with sticks and stones and jump off high things thinking they can fly. They wave shovels in the air and throw balls at windows all the while laughing their little dumb heads off. Oh sure it's funny until someone loses an eye or flips backward off a porch or gets hit in the neck with a stick. Good Lord, he is only 4. How the heck do I make it to his adulthood?  My husband tells me stories of all the dumb things he did as a boy and let me tell you, dumb! He used to launch dog poop from the end of a stick at people he didn't like, hide for hours from his poor screaming mother, jump off cliffs into the shallow lake, climb back up those same cliffs. He was a holy terror. Neighbors used to hide. If that's what's in store for this mom, God help me. After retrieving my child and getting him settled on the couch with heating pad and Tylenol(pulled neck muscle)I than retrieved today's mail. Please don't let there be anything suspect I pleaded to no one. Of course as fate loves to have it, a big threatening, I mean scary take care of asap bill. Great. You see yesterday I paid my store rent and paid for a work trip to New York City. Even though just an overnighter one of my favorite friends is joining me and I have fun things planned for the down time. A lot of I Love New York crammed into 48 hours. I was also making tentative plans to do some estate sale-ing this week with my partners in crime. So you can see I was happy. No worries. Bills were paid, so I thought. Financial plan for the next 6 months in order and now, yes, F*@# reality check. January is usually a month of despair for me. I usually enter this month with an overdrawn bank account and unpaid bills from the holiday frenzy. This was not to be in 2013. My husband and I were smart, dare I say thrifty this year when it came to gifts. Money got put in the bank not someone else's pocket. Life was on track, again or so I thought. See, I am a BIG believer in waiting for the other shoe to drop. For once, I wasn't thinking about the balance, I was just happy the scales were tipped in my favor. So I guess I got too big for my karmic britches because the shoe dropped hard. I suppose after writing it down it doesn't sound all that bad. My child is fine, the big scary bill will get paid, but in the heat of the moment when my stomach is flip-flopping all over the place, life feels sucky. I don't know what it is about my generation, but sometimes it feels like we all got a really bad turn. Trying to find balance in such an unstable environment is so tough, no wonder we are chasing yogis, and cleansing ourselves with disgusting juices and self-promoting only the happy times. Life is hard and ugly, but it is also beautiful and fabulous and if one can find the balance between the two than I guess we are ahead of the game. For me that would mean finding a little financial stability and a big plastic bubble in which to enclose my child. Since the latter is slightly unrealistic I suppose just being the best mother, wife, and friend that I can will have to suffice. Good evening world.

resolution

Well we survived, the end of the world that is. Happy new year my friends and fellow readers. It is a new year, new beginnings, new opportunities, what have you. I am just happy we are all still here. I know, I'm crazy for even thinking the end was near, but I tend to worry about the really dumb stuff that no one else does. Who am I kidding, I worry about everything. My husband was ready to deport me considering all the times I asked him if the world was going to end. Back when we got married I worried relentlessly about flesh-eating bacteria breakouts. See, crazy. Now my worries can just be about the daily minutae, so relieved am I. Soooo, a new year, which means new year's resolutions. Every year we make them to no avail. We are usually right back to smoking, eating, not exercising, even worrying, within a month.Well not this year! This year I am inspired to not make any resolutions.  I have decided that I like just who I am. Well sure I could be more patient, lose 5 lbs, not be so bossy, save my money better, but who couldn't? I have been trying for 42 years to be more patient. If it hasn't happened by now, well, there you go. They say( whoever "they" is) that life is what happens when you're not looking and I think I finally get this. Maybe it's my middle age or that I have wasted SO much time wishing for this and wishing for that, but when it comes right down to it, I am postively happy and content with this life. Maybe it's learning to choose your battles as you get older or maybe we DO get wiser. I don't know I just know that if we spend all our time trying to be this "perfect" person we are going to waste a LOT of this precious life we've been given. Age doesn't slow down and wait for us to figure it all out or get our shit together. As I sit here at my counter listening to my child and Dora playing in the background, eating my homemade banana bread after just cleaning my grimy kitchen, I am content. Life really is this simple. Yes, I need to get on the treadmill, get back to work, the norm, but for now I'll take this for a few more days. I am going to rest, recharge, and not look at my bank account. I am going to clean and bake and play with my child in the snow. I am not going to think about all the things I could try to change because as stated above I like the person I've become and have enjoyed all the roads I've traveled to find that person. Good afternoon world.