Stay

At 1:30 in the morning last night, my 9 year old was standing next to my bed. My eyes fluttered open to look up as she spoke.

"Mom, is it bad that it's 1:30 and I'm awake and I can't get back to sleep?"

I don't think I said anything. I reached for her with one arm and  lifted the sheet next to me with the other. She folded herself into my arms, and within minutes was asleep.

I lay there, awake for a bit but just barely, curled around this preteen who somehow once grew inside my body, and just breathed.

I saw a post today on facebook where another mom of a third grader was lamenting her daughter's baby days. The baby days were rough for me, man. Sometimes I feel sad about that, wondering if I missed something, if I was supposed to feel differently about it. If feeling anxious and sad and frustrated and lonely all the time was the wrong thing. If I did at all wrong, if the baby part was supposed to fill me with something that I would always long to get back.

And these preteen days, they're hard too. They're different hard. Putting this girl to bed last night, I listened to her cry about school, about friends, about not knowing her place and worrying about whether people would like her. An hour before, I'd sent her to her room for hitting her sister because she was frustrated with me for not sending said sister to bed yet. Two hours before that I'd followed her and her friends up and down the street while they picked up trash, an idea that had been entirely their own.

At 1:30 last night, I held my big little girl in my arms, and I just wanted her to stay here now. And she won't, we won't, we'll all keep growing. And the next stage will be wonderful and terrible, beautiful and crushingly hard. And I hope that when we're there, I can BE there like I was for a little while last night, when my brilliant, dramatic, anxious, wonderful daughter curled into me like she did nine years ago. I hope that I can just stay.

Snow day

The phone next to my bed rang before my alarm did. 5:00 AM. I fumbled with the phone, managing to pick it up without knocking it over.

"Schools will be on a two hour delay."

"Oh thank God," I muttered, clicking off the phone and rolling over.

I stayed out too late last night, at a Girl Scout volunteer meeting that included more wine and gossiping than I'd expected. A meeting/impromptu girls night that I had been incredibly grateful for.

But it was morning, and I was supposed to substitute for third grade today, and I was not prepared to get up.

And now I didn't have to.

An hour later, without much surprise, I picked up the phone again to hear that school was closed. Told my kids to go ahead and turn on the TV. Fell asleep on the couch.

I slept off and on for hours. We played in the snow. Did crafts. Baked cupcakes.

It's night now, and my kids are in bed, and I'm grateful for today. Grateful and also... Vulnerable? Wondering if I wasted the day? Feeling guilty for my laziness? And I'm trying to remember that it's okay to have a lazy easy day.

Can we talk about courage?

I had a mini coaching session today (okay, just saying that makes me sound self-indulgent) (okay, probably just to me) where we talked about my limiting beliefs. There were a heck of a lot of them. Like, that I need to write something deep and meaningful every time I write. Like that people aren't going to like what I write. Like that it's embarrassing to try, that my worth is tied to my accomplishments.

What if I fail, we said. I'd be embarrassed. I'd be right where I am now. I'd be afraid to go on. I know that I SHOULD just start before I'm ready, that I SHOULD just write, just show up, power through. But I don't wanna.  It's scary.

Well, she said, you need to think about courage.

And you can't just sit around and wait for courage to show up (well why the heck not? That would be better). It's our thoughts that give us courage. What thoughts would give you courage?

Ummm. Uhh. Well. I don't know? I can't really think of anything?

Hmm, she said. And then silence. (Which meant she was judging me, right? That she thought I was hopeless? No, right? Of course not... right?)

I want to have courage. I want to be brave even though I'm afraid. But I don't know how to get there.