The weary in my soul is setting in. I can feel all 44 years of my life and the past three night shifts I've worked in the ICU this afternoon at 3:45pm, as I wake up to my alarm telling me its time to get up and go exercise with my daughter.
I don't want to go.
I want to stay in my bed and sleep until morning, foregoing the beautiful dinner that my husband will make, no doubt, later on tonight. Missing out on three beautiful faces as they tell me about the ups and the downs of the last four days of their life I've missed while I've been working and sleeping. I want to skip the workout altogether, telling myself that my spin bike can wait until tomorrow, sleep is more important. But, then I hear her clunky footsteps up the staircase into her room. I rise up, sleepy face and bad breath, and hear her unconstrained squeal of excitement as I tell her I'm taking her with me. I love that I've passed my love of sweat on to her.
She's so different than me. We ride along George Washington Parkway, up the Potomac river into the District listening to Taylor Swift with the sunroof open and seat warmers on. She sings all of the words to a song I didn't know that she knew. Almost all of her baby teeth are out now, she's yet to receive her first pimple or her period, but I know how quickly that is on the horizon. She's had a few bad days at school, and has really needed some time together, and I'm so glad to be able to give it. And, I realize for a moment how glad I am that my alarm went off, how I rose, how my daughter's needs were calling me....more so than the spin class.
I feel that while I've done so many things wrong in this world, there are a three things I've done very right....three beautiful things. Jet, Danny, and Kimber. I think that somehow I knew from the first day how hard it would be, that I was raising adults and not children. I saw from the example of me and my own parents that I would be introducing into the world people who were very different than I....knowing that I didn't have a right to their personality, to their likes and dislikes, to their skills, or to their unique contribution to this world. I didn't create them, God did. I knew instinctively that they were gifted to my stewardship, nothing more. It was my job to put the right people into their lives to help them grow, it was my job to show up and be present...putting aside my phone and all distraction and meeting them exactly in the moment where they are. It was my job to appreciate and highlight in them their unique beauty, while pruning away behavior that does not represent the person they are. Unfortunately, it was also my job to move them away and out of bad situations, making choices that were good ones, while also causing much pain and heartache.
I breathe into you.