Y’all, I’m about…uhhh…..I don’t know how many glasses of wine into today. Three? Four? I’ve also had a Nuvigil. Whatever. I’m excited. Today was awesome.
Yesterday? Also awesome.
Yesterday? I hit my stay-at-home-mom stride. ::whew:: I’d been consumed by some kind of funk earlier in the week and then yesterday, I felt like a Mom. Ready to tackle everything. I think it might’ve been the Kona Blend I made sure to brew when I woke up yesterday morning. (Monday and Tuesday? No coffee. Ish-y days. Wednesday? Coffee. Good day. Correlation? Possibly. Yes.)
There’s always an adjustment period when Joshua and I hit a break in my school schedule, and it’s often not an adjustment for which I’m ready. I always think we’ll just be able to pick up seamlessly with our mother-son routine and be us and be cool. And then I’m slapped in the face with a healthy dose of reality that says “Your son is on a schedule that doesn’t include you during the day, you idiot” and I’m all “THIS SUCKS, UNIVERSE.”
But yesterday? Yesterday, there was none of that. Yesterday I was making breakfast and we were coloring and having fun and then he napped and I didn’t (weird, I know. It was an experiment. Which failed miserably.) And we went to Target and my sister-in-law’s house and out to dinner and we just had a really, really good day. Followed by today. Which was also really, really good.
Today was our Christmas with Dan’s family. There were gifts and wine and food and more wine and family and it was really, really nice. It felt…really good.
(If you have a toddler boy? Go get him this: Imaginext Squid. Seriously. This was the hit of the day.)
The majority of my Christmas stress comes from Dan’s family. Why? Because they aren’t my blood family. I married into it. So I think I always feel the need to be accepted by them somehow. Like I’m afraid I’ll be excommunicated if things don’t go perfectly. I’m not sure where that comes from, really. Unless it’s just my unending need to be liked and accepted by everyone. And I certainly have that need to be accepted.
And my family is just stuck with me no matter what so I’m less inclined to worry that they won’t like me, you know?
Tonight there was an exchange that went something like this.
Dan: “Dinner is running an hour behind.”
Me: “Dinner’s an hour late? Cool! We’re good! More wine!”
And Dan’s all stressed that dinner’s running an hour behind schedule. And I just instinctively know that things will be okay. That people are happy and that the mood is light and flowing and the kids aren’t having a meltdown and things. are. okay.
Sometimes? I have a really hard time knowing that things will be okay.
Dan and I have said countless times today, “These things always turn out better than we think they will, don’t they?” And the truth is that they do. They always do. I stress and stress and stress and things are always better somehow.
I am always better somehow. Almost everything turns out better somehow.
I think I’m going to drown in the frustration of the moment. That I’m going to be crushed under the weight of whatever it is I’m facing at that moment and then? I don’t get crushed. I dog-paddle my way to safety. And then I’m swimming WITH the current instead of against it.
And things are better.
And that’s kind of the story of my life lately.
I get stressed and then things are better. Things are normal. Which leads me to wonder if the stress I’m feeling lately is just plain, ol’ run-of-the-mill stress that everyone faces from time to time. If this is maybe what I’ve been hoping would happen all along. That the stress would come and it would suck and then I’d be able to jump the hurdle. That I’d be able to get back to normal.
It could be the wine, but right now? I feel normal.
Totally, completely normal.
I feel good.