I am tired.
I feel like I could start basically sentence of every blog post/conversation/phone call/communication with that statement.
I. Am. Tired.
But at least today, it feels like a good tired. Like I’m tired because I actually did it all today at a pretty mediocre level but it all got done. I just put the third load of laundry in and as much as I want to just crash and watch some netflix on my phone till I fall asleep, I opened up the laptop and decided to just write. Because I’m committing to “just write” for the next 30 days at least. I’m sure most of these posts will end up like this one…full of the minutiae and drudgery that make up most of my days.
But it is me, here, writing. Telling my story – one dreary household chore at a time. I guess the ironic part is that really, that’s how all stories get told. It’s in finding the magic in the minutiae that makes you sit up and take notice.
Don’t worry – there is no magic in today’s minutiae. It was full of kids in my room/bed due to a random thunderstorm in January, rushing around to make it to bus stops on time, lunches that were full of whatever is in the pantry, truancy letters from the school because one has been too sick for school but not specifically ill enough for a doctor office visit for a note to excuse those days, a sink full of dishes that seem to multiply on their own, pouring rain that i needed to schlep through to take other people their groceries, and scraping whatever we had in the frozen fridge outside for dinner.
But oh…I did forget the magic sound of the laughter of all four of my babies as we ran to Target to find KoolAid to color their hair with. And how kendall was telling us all that some boys in her class were making fun of her for being “in luuuuuvvv” with her best friend Keegan and we were all telling her to ignore the haters because she is allowed to love whomever she wants and Keegan is more of a friend to her than a lot of people will ever be blessed to know. And how in the middle of all of this emotional drama Kaylen pipes up with “I’d rather be scrapbooking”….and we all start looking around because she is notorious for just reading things out loud and you have to figure out where she’s looking in order to find what in the heck she means. She had read it off someone’s license plate frame and it had us all just howling with laughter. And all of this laughter is so so so good for my mama heart. I love hearing that sound from all of them, and i find myself joining in with the laughter and all of us just laughing and singing and being together is really just….magic. Right in the middle of the dreary, ugly, hard, tiring minutiae.
I found out about the sudden passing of a friend’s husband yesterday. And my heart still aches to even think of what she must be feeling, enduring, reeling with right now. I cannot fathom that kind of shock and numbing loss. And she posted today that we should all love each other louder and harder and forgive quicker because tomorrow is never a guarantee. and i know that, i really do. But it takes something like this to slap you in the face with that reality and wake you up to the fact that maybe you aren’t loving and forgiving like you know you should. Make the mundane meaningful. Find the magic in the minutiae.
Yes.
yes.
As part of my seeking to better my writing and my blog, I was challenged today to create a new graphic. I wasn’t feeling very creative in the middle of all this other chaos, so I defaulted to my typical mildly rebellious “well fine, I’ll do this but i’ll do it MY way.” So i created something that wasn’t in keeping with the traditional sense of “clean graphic design” but it was about me finding the dichotomous contrast of a quote that didn’t match with the soft floral theme. And this is what I came up with.
I love all things Godfather related.
But this quote….For some reason I really picked it apart today, as I was rolling all the above around in my head.
Leave the Gun.
Take the Cannoli.
He had his priorities. And he dropped what no longer served him, and took what mattered most.
So this is me, in the middle of a day full of minutiae, learning what it means to leave the gun, and take the cannoli.
Party on Party People~
T.