Insert witty title here

I want to make some kind of wry joke about pneumonia. Honestly, I can’t. I’m so tired. I’m tired and depressed. I tried to do some reading about pneumonia recovery, and it was all really bad news…like, it takes up to 6 months, and a certain percentage of people will DIE in that time frame. It makes me so sad, and a little scared, and in the meantime I feel so much pressure from all the things I need to get done  (not even counting providing Christmas for the kids). The shopping part is done, at any rate. It’s just everything else that hasn’t been doable. No Thanksgiving, no tree, no decorations, no holiday luncheon today…I might miss out on the Winter Fantasia concert Saturday. 

Then there’s the 3rd grade party next week. What if I’m still not well enough to go? The last thing I want to do is embarrass my little sunshine of a daughter by bringing a serious medical situation to her classroom fun time.

Tim sent me a selfie of the two of them from the Christmas luncheon today. I’m so glad he was able to go with her. It doesn’t escape my attention, though, that this is two school functions in a row for her (Veterans Day on 11/11 and now this event today) that I have been too sick to attend.

Even though I try and remind myself that when I’m sick, I feel like it’s always going to last forever…there is always that fatalistic side of me that pipes up with, “What if this is your last Christmas? The kids will grow up traumatized about the holidays.” Shit like that. As if I can pressure my lungs into doing the right thing.

So, a small inventory: my breathing is better today than last week. I have a check-up coming up on the 17th. My husband is the love of my life and he’s there for me. It’s 100% normal and reasonable to want to cry. It’s probably good for me on some level to actually cry, it just isn’t happening. I got sick of wallowing in my 30s, I reckon. Hard to turn on the sprinkler system now.

sidenote - not a matcha tea person - yuck

Back to gratitude: the kids are healthy. GiGi is recovering from her cough. The boys are all fine, health-wise. I won’t mention the interpersonal problems of raising three teen boys under the same roof right now. I’ll just be grateful they are all healthy enough to be…outspoken about their emotions.

I will eventually feel better. I will feel better and then I won’t feel sad like this. I will feel hope again. I will make plans again. I will leave the house again. All of that will happen.

And in the odd chance it doesn’t happen…that I never get well, and I’m truly going to be sick forever and then die from this…then I am loved. I am so loved. Maybe I don’t feel all the love flowing back to me every day, but I trust that the love I have poured into my little ones is going to flow forward in their lives. Their hearts will be as soft as they need to be. They will make good choices. (They will make mistakes, but they will learn from them.) They will make themselves proud, they will live lives of compassion, and they will matter SO much to the people around them. Those ripples, those waves of love…they are already in motion. 

This time of year we’re reminded to look hard at our little babies, to drink in their sweetness and potential and see them for the blessings they are. For me they are four bright stars, burning brighter than anything. I am like a planet in orbit around four suns.

I just want to stay in orbit.