Routine Moments with an Incredible Subterranean Set of Circumstances
In the breakfast nook I sit. Laptop on the kid smeared breakfast table with coffee near. Avery sways to the tunes of Taylor Swift to my right, intermediately taking breaks to shove fists of cheerios into her mouth. My little Zev has excitedly bounced up the stairs to waken his tween sister, Audry.
“Wildest Dreams” is momentarily interrupted by an outburst of screams and thrashing from Avery. No rhythm or reason, not discernible to me at least.
Another song cued up and Avery returns to devouring her breakfast— what is left on the table after throwing most of it on the floor.
Zev has yet to return from his sister’s room, however I haven’t heard any tween screams of frustrations so I don’t intervene.
School drop off will commence in just twenty minutes.
Avery makes her routine move from the chair and rolls into the living room—as my first alarm of many sounds with the reminder it is time to pack backpacks and corral the children into shoes, jackets.
My day, my month, my year will be filled with replicated moments. Most mornings, I will glide thru the routine in a fog— a robotic version of myself so accustomed to the procedure that I am barely thinking, barely feeling the experience.
The coffee tastes the same, the screams of Avery’s morning outburst at the breakfast table are expected, the tween annoyance of her little brother will be played out with anticipation as every day before.
We will rush to get out the door because all the time we felt we had will suddenly diminish as we make a mad dash to the car.
And there is where I will begin— in the time we feel we will always have and in the moments we experience daily without acknowledging the underpinnings of their circumstance.
I sit at my breakfast table, a table new to me from a move 20 months ago. A move resulted from a series of events that led us to jump off a cliff of uncertainty and choose a simple life in a simple neighborhood instead of a move to England—an expat move that I was sure was the only key to my genuine happiness.
To my right is Avery, a frustrated screaming eight-year-old in the moment, but overall a miracle of corrupted chromosome lines with an undeniable will to live and a spirit full of answers with a body unable to share them.
Upstairs is my toddler, a child who against all odds survived a pregnancy that was believed to be unsurvivable. He had survived. I had survived my entryway. Layers upon layers of circumstance, choices, perseverance, faith, and an unwavering stubbornness are just beneath the surface of these routine moments of our day.
A rushed Audry tramples down the stairs. She’s overslept. She’s now eleven-years-old and in the sixth grade. A first born. Our pride and joy. A part of us and our sixteen years together.
Where we are headed is a series of routine moments with an incredible subterranean set of circumstances that led us there. We are jarred from the routine by affliction— moving us on another path and/or to a place of enlightenment and appreciation. And then those survived afflictions become new layers beneath a new routine.
Awareness is my struggle.
I think of cancer-- the boogey man of my today. I have seen too many friends and neighbors affected by the devastating misfortune for it not to be the most terrifying, yet realistically possible, affliction I can imagine.
Lost in my routine, forgetting my own past, I must often jolt myself into a place of awareness that the time I am spoiled with today— the time that I so freely take for granted— isn’t guaranteed and it isn’t fairly distributed to everyone.
Being a mother of a child with a shorter life expectancy should serve as a daily reminder of the gift of time, yet part of surviving today is forgetting the unpleasantries of the future.
I am but a constant addict of preoccupation trying to earn a chip. I made promises to God and to myself—bargained shamefully to survive when death was at my door. As death moved on for someone else, I fell back into routine. I fell back into the lies to myself that I will always have time— my loved ones will always be with me, my children, my husband, my health and my future.
If we could all just live like we do when we are threatened with the end—- recklessly open with our feelings, our gratitude and selfish with our time savoring it, relishing in it with only those that are dearest to us.
And then our alarm sounds—it’s time to get up, go to work, get the kids to school, do laundry, pay bills and live our day of distractions.
Ah, the struggle of an almost unachievable balance of living a fulfilling life with gratitude and fulfilled responsibilities while cherishing time.
Waking with opened eyes, a beating heart and a life to live should be our first thought of gratitude each morning. Without cancer lingering, without afflictions reminding us of our mortality. There is a special prayer for this in Judaism (as I’m sure there is in other religions) for this very moment. The first prayer of the day before even fully waking. I adore this. I adore the idea, but admittedly I rarely live it.
Perhaps, that is my secret to why I love running so much. Running fills me with a deep sense of gratitude for my health, the moment, the weather, God, family, soul, body and for being alive. I feel all of it and more as my feet hit the pavement, I breathe in the air, and experience what my mind, body and spirit can achieve. Being able to run feels like a blessing and in that I am really feeling the moment, gratitude for life and for time.
We all need more of those soul fulfilling moments in our daily lives to counter balance the rush and despondency of routine.
What is your moment? What is your standstill in time where life makes sense, you are filled with appreciation and for at least those minutes-- you are really living.
If you can’t answer, go find your reminder….
