I started writing this post because I was having some more deep thoughts like I occasionally do, mostly resulting from crying on the way home from the spray park on Sunday. Or maybe the crying was the result of the deep thoughts. Either way, there were deep thoughts and a little crying. Not real crying, just some tears and some happy ones really. Because that's what I do.
I'm a big dork in that I constantly contemplate my life. Sometimes I wonder, what if. I wonder if I am doing what I am supposed to and if I am leaving a mark in this world. And I wonder where the heck life is taking me because I mostly feel like I am just along for the ride even though I am the one driving, and then there are the times where I want it to just sort of pause because I love it so much.
This was one of those times.
I don't know why or what made me cry, all I know is that we had just played around in the sprinklings of the spray park, there may or may not have been a mommy-heart-attack because the little one ran off into the woods, then we played some more, dried off and put on dry clothes, and ran to the car as it started to pour, laughing the whole way and making it under cover just in time.
I put the radio on and started to drive. One little boy started to fall asleep, and the other one was sitting there bobbing his head to the music. I looked in the rearview mirror and held my breath for a second, which made me think about that quote, "Life isn't measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
And this was one of those moments.
The rain was more of a sunshower then, the sun was poking through the gray clouds and the rain slowed to a drizzle and the road glistened. The kind of weather where you're sure there is a rainbow somewhere although I didn't see one.
The song, "I Could Not Ask For More" came on and I just started to cry.
Another one of those moments where all I could think while I was driving was that things at that moment were perfect. The weather with its sunny rainy-ness and my children, all played out and content, on their way to naps. My life, all twisty and turny and curvy, but in short, happy.
Crazy happy.
And perfect.
To me.
I think of life in past and present and how after such a long time of angst and wondering what my place in life is and what role there is for me to fill, I seem to have stopped furiously searching around for what's next. I used to feel sort of lost, like I knew I needed to be here at home with my children, but I always thought I needed to be doing something else too. But I could never figure out what that thing was.
And that feeling of always needing to be doing something but not being able to figure it out was always so unsettling. I felt unfinished.
I thought about how not so long ago, I wrote a post about choices. About how I cried a little because while I was watching my friends climb their amazing career ladders, I had chosen a completely different ladder. I felt lost for a little while after putting my career on hold and while I was sure I had chosen the right path for me, I felt sometimes like my nose was pressed up against the glass, looking at other people's careerlives moving forward, while mine was just kind of, paused. And I wondered what might've been.
Today I re-read that post. And realized I wrote that was almost exactly one year ago.
My how a year can change things.
Back then, I was still nursing. I still had some of the babyweight on. My children were 2 and not yet one. I was over the post-partum depression, but I was still feeling my way around with the whole "having two children in diapers" thing.
I had just joined my preemie moms group but was still very afraid of meeting new people because I wasn't quite back to my sociable self yet. I had run a 5k but that was it so far (no 10k, no half marathon, definitely no triathlon -- that word hadn't even entered my vocabulary or consciousness yet.) And I was still a little lost with who I was and even more, who I was as a mother.
I wasn't appreciating and basking in every moment.
Not like I am now.
I look back now and think that wow. All those miles logged this year were not just for my feet, they were for my head. An entire year of self-reflection and discovery, watching myself fall and get up. Getting over why my body failed me in my first pregnancy, putting on so much weight, post-partum depression, coming out of the fog and my mini-identity crisis and overcoming fears, big and small.
One year to feel completely whole again. Like myself.
Somewhere along the way this year, I completely stopped searching for that other thing, whatever that thing was that I was searching for. I still have no idea what it was and I don't even know what made me stop searching or when it was that I stopped!
I guess I figured out that there is no other thing. This is it. Or maybe I am finally ok with this being it. Because it's plenty! I finally know what "My cup overfloweth" actually means! I have my children and my husband and my family and friends. I do some writing. I do some exercising. I do some cooking, some sewing, some picture-taking, some socializing, some volunteering, some fundraising, some decorating, some helping, some gardening, some cleaning, some organizing, a little of this and a little of that, and that's who I am and that's what I do. That is what my existence is right now.
What I truly hope for each day is that I say the right thing during my day, that I help someone, somewhere, and that I make someone smile. That I am kind and keep my temper. And that I bask in at least one awesome moment a day because there are quite a few of them and I can miss them if I don't pay attention. Every moment, from hearing my three-year-old say, "Mom. Mama. Mommy!!!!!!" to watching him scoot pantless in his fireman outfit toward the potty, to putting an ice cream cone up to my little baby's face and watching him eat it.
Even the jumping from the coffee table to the couch, which makes me die a little on the inside every time.
In one year, I've gone from wanting something more to wanting to wrap my arms around everything that currently is.
I have found my happy place. And I'm just going to sit here and bask in it for a little while.
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