I’m here in a season of change. I haven’t gone this long without writing since I was pregnant with Sawer. It’s not for writer’s block, lack of inspiration or even not enough time. I have sat down to write dozens of times in the last few weeks with a dam of pent up thoughts that simply won’t come out the way I want them to. There have been times I’ve stared wide-eyed at the computer screen with parts of thoughts and epiphanies that won’t go together fluidly. I crave that feeling when the words knit themselves together. I miss the completion, the high.
These last few years have been about embracing the messy reality of imperfection so today, here are broken musings and partial thoughts, not a perfect post.
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I just finished my first week back at work after some time off for the holidays. I spent some time in Austin, Texas and remembered even in the dreary cold why I love that town so much. Seeing family that I don’t see often enough was goodness itself and the plethora of things to do kept us from even having a moment of boredom. Vacation was so necessary for us. We didn’t realize how much we needed it until perhaps the third or fourth day. Vacation with kids, for me anyways, is actually harder than a week of work BUT it was so worth the hours of time I got to spend with each of my boys. I felt exhausted but extremely renewed by the end of it.
Being a working mom isn’t something I ever thought that I’d do actually. I always saw myself as a stay at home mom like my mom had been. I literally never saw myself working outside the home growing up, not that I ever saw working outside of the home as bad (OK, OK, I’m pretty sure that I did think it was bad actually- I’ll save that thought for another post, another day.)
I think for most people life is surprising. I was surprised to find that I liked to work and that I was good at it but even as much as I know that it’s the best decision that Ben and I came together on- I still feel lingering guilt. I think about moments missed a lot. It’s funny, even as a working mom I haven’t felt my identity in that that I am a working mom– I’m just simply a mom that happens to work.
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This morning I woke up with the craving to make crepes and lemon curd from scratch. I craved the deeply sunny lemony goodness both for it’s sweetly tart flavor as I did for the cheerful color. It is a delicacy that I often eat plain with a spoon the way I do with sweetened condensed milk when no one is looking…
I felt the stretch of life again after months of cooking from healthy duty and not the heart pounding love of it. Perhaps it was the forecast that had a snowflake in it but I felt the adrenaline of life grip me.
Do you know what I’m talking about? I don’t know what to call it but it’s life- the pulsing feeling that stirs the blood and empties serotonin from the mysterious recesses of the mind, like a cobwebbed tunnel where a locked door is opened. Serotonin must look like lemon curd- joy seems so sunny and light.
