What matters

A couple of times a week, when it’s too dark or cold or rainy to run outside, I get dinner going and then, when Matt comes home, I head over to the community center and run on the indoor track there for awhile. It clears my head and gives me a little space to breathe, by myself. When I come home the kids are generally in pajamas already. The kitchen might be strewn with dishes still, and everyone’s teeth might not be brushed, but most of the time Matt very graciously grants me an extension of my breathing space -- or he tries to. I eat a plate of whatever it was I started before I left, and then I run a bubble bath. It’s never a long one, because I have children to tuck in or papers to grade, but I always hope to grasp just a few moments of relative solitude. A bath, a book -- two of my favorite things.

And then, of course, I read two pages. Maybe. The door flies open and my son says, “Hi, Mommy! We’re cookin’ some supper! What kind of pizza you like?” He holds a little notebook in his hands, pretends to write with a pen.

“What’s your favorite?” I ask, knowing he’ll beam and say, “Peppa-woni!”

“Well, that sounds good,” I say. “Should I have anything else?”

“How ‘bout salad,” suggests my handsome little waiter in his robot jammies. “And a dwink.”

“I would love a salad and a drink,” I tell him, and he says, all business, “Comin’ right up!”

“Could you close the door?” I call after him, but he is already trotting down the hallway, into the family room where he and his sister have spread out their restaurant supplies -- their pizza, ice cream, and brownie play sets. (They always insist that I have dessert. I raise them right.)

It’s not always a game of restaurant; many nights they just want to come in and scoop up a handful of bubbles, dab them on their chins, and lean over the bathroom sink to admire their new beards. They brush their teeth. If I’m late getting in the tub, they lean over to kiss me goodnight. By the time the bathroom door closes for the last time, I’ve read very little of my book and the water is too cold. But it doesn’t matter.

It has been a stressful week, and I found myself feeling pretty miserable about everything until I remembered that the week after Thanksgiving is always kind of stressful and miserable. I’m prone to flying off the handle and proclaiming that everything is terrible; I react. I know this. But I also know who to go to when I feel like this -- the people who talk me down gently, who remind me to look a little beyond the terrible moment, which is so far from anything truly terrible I should be on my knees with gratitude for it all. Tonight, I’m offering up a prayer of thanks for those people, and for a little perspective. It’s not that I think none of us have the right to feel stressed and miserable when things feel gross, but I also think it’s important not to drop anchor there. I’ve swung back and forth this week between feeling overwhelmed and frustrated and helpless and angry and things I can’t control and...a very simple realization, which is that none of those things will change the things that matter: those silly bubble beards, for instance. Those interrupted baths. The piles of dishes after dinner, the piles of laundry that cycle through my house each week. The daily rhythms of our lives. The totally ordinary things that just happen to be my reasons for breathing.

One week from tomorrow, my son turns four years old. His third birthday was the day of the Sandy Hook massacre, a day that found me crying alone in my classroom during lunch and wanting to leave, just leave, to drive like hell across town and grab both of my children in my arms. I felt totally broken in my gratitude that night as I ate dinner with my family, and totally helpless in the face of all I stand to lose. The terror of facing what I could not possibly survive -- and yet people do, every day.

How?

If only love could keep my children safe and keep the fear out of my heart.

It’s not enough, of course, but it’s what I have. And some primal part of me understands that if my children know that they are loved, totally and completely, if they are secure in that, then everything else is okay. Or I think of all the times in my life when I have breathed a deep sigh of relief -- after Isaac’s kidney infection was finally diagnosed and treated, after Suzannah ate a few bites of food after a few days of eating nothing when she had the flu, after seeing her face break into a grin when I picked her up after her first day of kindergarten -- and thought, if they are okay, then everything is okay. I hate that not all children are wrapped in that kind of love. I hate that it’s not enough to save anyone. But it’s what I have to offer, as imperfect as I am, and I hope it’s at least enough to shake me out of the moments when I forget that everything that matters is right here, in my arms, okay.