Life-Changing Days

Every so often, life gives us a day that, like the earthquake in Japan earlier this year, shifts our axis a little bit and makes our outlook from then on just a little bit different.

The past twenty-four hours have been one of those days for me.

It started out fairly normally. I got up at my usual ungodly hour, worried about how my upcoming schedule change will hurt my life, worked out hard at the gym, went to work. I ate my same old day-in-day-out breakfast of an orange, two hard-boiled eggs, and a glass of milk. Saw the same people at work that I always see. Started my day with the same routine.

Then, mid-morning, it happened. Something out of the ordinary. One small event--an email, actually--that grew like a beanstalk I could climb into heaven and access a golden harp and a golden-egg-laying hen, if I want to. Suddenly, dreams I've harbored for a long time seem reasonable.

Best of all, my place in the universe seems defined for me. As a writer. As a mother and wife. As a worker. As a human being, even.

I remember as a child I often walked around the house wondering, "Here we all are, but what are we supposed to do?"

What I'm supposed to do, and, more importantly, who I am, both seem much clearer to me. My confidence has solidified.

The email was from a staff member of a newspaper, informing me that my first blog article, "Cooking Is Love," (look way back to the beginning of this blog), had been published in the online news. It's a small thing, but it's a start. It's a beginning, but it's an end of wondering why-oh-why.

From this grew affirmations from so many people in one day that my confidence, not only as a writer, but as a human being who is valued, grew right up into the sky like that beanstalk. Words like "brilliant," "funny," "very touching," came at me like wind up a hot-air balloon.

When I told my children that my article about their dad's cooking had been published, one of them gasped. "Does Daddy know you published that?"

I smiled. "Yes, he's the first person I told."

And it makes me smile--that I have him in my life, that our relationship has weathered storms to become something enduring and satisfying, like the tree growing out of the rock in my favorite painting.

There was one moment in my day that threatened to flush all of this. Someone who has some power over me heard something from someone else and repeated it to me in a not-nice way. She didn't take the time to hear my point of view and shut me down when I offered it. This brought all sorts of negative feelings and thoughts up for me.

I resented the lack of acknowledgement I got for doing her a favor in the first place, even though I had made one small mistake in doing it. I resented not being given a voice. And I resented the lack of acknowledgement or softening in her that I expected as I handled the situation maturely, taking full responsibility and apologizing.

I started to develop a new tic.

But as I reflected on that, it did seem to be a fitting part of the day, because there are changes I need to make. I've known I need to make them for some time, and this brought that back into view. And as I considered the source of the chewing out--both of the people involved, and acknowledged the wrong-doing on my own part, I felt at peace again. I am who I am, and I am really okay with that. I have grown in ways I needed to, and I can see my way clear for growing in the ways I still need to. I have gained perspective.

I have so much to be grateful for, and smallness on the part of one or two does not and should not cloud the validity of my worth to myself and everyone else I know, which, other than in that one moment of the day, had been coming through loud and clear.

Besides, some day, I can write about those people in detail.

To top it all off, a friend from high school I had reached out to four months ago and not heard back from finally got on Facebook and gave me the warm response I had hoped for. I had assumed all this time that he had not welcomed my hello, but, again, I just needed to be patient, and not assume the worst. Further validating to me.

I completed all of the evening chores and duties that I had upon my head and had myself put upon my shoulders, and went to bed.

Then I had a dream in which I was visited by another old friend. The details of the dream are not important. What is important is the feeling that I woke up with--that I matter. I matter to a lot of people who matter to me. What I have to say matters. I am who I am. I can do what I need to do. I have support and love. I feel confidence and courage.

I feel I can handle things better. The need to feel grouchy, or overwhelmed, or small, or stupid--less than I am in any way, seems to have vanished. Everything that matters to me is now in focus.

Thank you, everybody! And, yes, I mean you.

Linger a Little Longer

My baby just came into my bedroom and tossed two little white socks up on my bed at me.

"Too small," he said, then turned and left.

It felt as if the socks were not little and fluffy, but heavy as cast-iron and had landed on my heart.

It's not that this particular pair of socks means a lot to me, although it's clear that their usefulness in my family is over. He'll never wear them again.

I was only still in bed because I had to finish reading, The Help, an important book about the vital need for and terrible risks of change, before I could function again. I knew what was next--the long run for the week that I'd been putting off all morning. And then, finishing writing my own important book, which I'd been putting off even longer, before it's too late for me.

I picked up the little socks and folded them back together again into a tucked-over roll, the way my mother showed me how to fold socks when I was his age. I squeezed them a little in my hand. Lovingly.

Inexplicably, I felt like he had given me a gift.

Not a pair of socks no one will ever wear again.

His own growth.

Every day of my life, I feel like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. Life stretches and pulls on me, forcing me out of my comfort zone before I'm ready. The old stuff pulling off hurts the new skin underneath.

But what does anything ever mean if it stays the same? Though I wish each moment could linger a little longer than it does.

Right now, half of my baby's brothers have already grown up and left the home. I have pictures, but they only capture seconds in time. His other brothers are away, with their father. They'll come back today. I expect.

At work, they keep throwing my department into the blender to see what else they can chop and mix up. I've had more supervisors in the past while than I've had in ten years before. Someone up above me in the department thrives on change. I think they're playing paper dolls with us and can't wait to see what we look like in the yellow outfit.

They tell us about the new changes planned and wait for us to thank them.

I think, "What will this mean to my family? Will I still see my friends? Will I get fatter if I can't work out on the new schedule like I can now?"

And then we all adjust to it and move on.

My baby is not really a baby anymore. He's been reading for almost two years. He counts everything on one hand, having learned a system for keeping the ten's place without involving his toes.

I want to believe the best part of his day--as it is the best part of mine--is when I gather him up onto my lap before he gets in his little bed and hold him, rock him, and sing to him. He wants to hear the babyish song I made up at his age for my mother to sing to me. He wants to hear an old favorite nursery rhyme that everyone knows so well they are sick of it. And he wants to hear a wrenching song about the crucifixion.

I sing the last song, at his demand, feeling guilty all the while that I've exposed his mind to this truth, that I've exposed his body to pain by bringing it into the world, that the love for him bursting out of my heart every time I look at or think of his angel face can't keep him safe from truth or pain.

And if that group of songs isn't life all rolled up into one, I don't know what is.

He reaches his little arm up around my neck, snuggles down into my softness, sighing out whatever stress has been in his day. For one moment, we are again connected, mother and child. I keep rocking after the songs are finished, hoping he will just stay that way with me a little longer, but he knows what is next in the routine and slips off my lap to accomplish it.

Like every other child, he knows his job is to grow up.

And I know my most heartbreaking job is to let him.

But I smile to myself. Because he is still here. Growing. That is my gift.