the dog days of winter

Two dogs are at my feet fighting over a ball. When I say “fighting” it may not be accurate. Tussling? Trying to eat the ball at the same time?

School is two hours late due to the Minnesota wind and snow. The kids are lolling here and there, grateful and happy for the moments. I am, too.

The two dogs have moved on, and the two other dogs are snuggled in with the fourteen-year-old on the couch. Yes, that math is 2 dogs + 2 dogs = 4 dogs. Sometimes a second marriage means combining dog families. I have two stepdogs. There are a lot of dogs. I complain to my friends a lot about trying to have so many indoor dogs. Then I look at these dogs and fall in love every time. It’s so confusing.

I got to talk with a long-distance friend last night for over an hour. It fueled me. She called me resilient and I guess that’s true. I had been telling her about some changes in me, some clarity moments, some shifts. I told her about another friend getting through to me. That’s another story for another day. It has to do with resignation and the realization that though I have been going and going and going I simply cannot anymore. I am in one of life’s forced stops. There are plenty of daily grind things to do, but there is nowhere to go, figuratively. And also not many literal places to go because my body is totally against going and going and going. So is the weather. So is Covid.

I am uncomfortable, and that’s okay.

I am realizing that as much as I am needed (so many needs to be met) I am not the center my ego prefers to view me as. No one else can handle all this shit, is a lie. It’s all on me, is a lie. So there was this mental health breakdown, and terrible winter weather, and my car in the shop for a week, and Covid calling the shots, and here I am. Stopped.

My “plan” (what is the point of planning these days?) was to travel around to get some books for the bookstore today, but the weather hit and I am afraid of winter roads. So again, I am forced to stillness. And then a podcast I listen to regularly was about stillness and how hard it is and how we can’t seem to choose it unless there is no other option. No way to run. No next thing to do. And I have not ever been good at happy mediums or moderation. I have always been good at going and going and nexting and nexting and projects and horizons. It’s like staying home and NOT doing every last chore is some sort of punishment. And if not a punishment, then laziness. It must be laziness. I need to be producing, creating, doing, going and showing my work! I am a hard-working good citizen of the United States of America and I will kill myself showing that good work to you and to me. I will make sure we both know that I am good and capable and not useless.

I have been realizing this for like, years. But for a few months now, I’ve been actually trying more stillness, more stopping. But honestly, I still fill it with Netflix or podcasts and most definitely cleaning and doing laundry and putting the clean silverware back in the drawer. Can’t stop, won’t stop. Oh and now that all of that is done, I must get to the bookstores and straighten up and put in more books and then I should write and make that appointment for my mom and and and. Infinity.

Of course there are things that have to get done. Needs that must be met. And in my current life there are a lot of needs I cannot control or stop meeting. But what about me? Why have I not considered my actual life and living it? What is life-giving to me? I don’t even really know. I have felt suffocated and isolated just like everyone else in the last few years. But even before that, did I have fun? Did I fill my cup, as they say? Did I even have my own oxygen mask? (I have always hated that analogy and I know it’s because of stubborness.)

Rarely. So rarely have I gone beyond thinking of what I might need and actually met those needs. Because I have to switch the laundry until it’s finished. Isn’t that so ridiculous?

I cannot seem to recall times where I felt good about free time yay me time, not even a half a day of fun. What’s fun?

Thank God I am somehow still pretty okay at seeing the beautiful moments that bring me joy in every day or my mental health breakdown would have destroyed me. Because I do. I see the exquisite ordinary as extraordinary, to this day. While meeting needs, while exhausted, while sad, I always have some level of joy. Isn’t that something?

My children’s eyelashes still get me. A dog sleeping at my feet. The hilarious text from a friend. My big burly husband’s eyes. The feel of a magical quilt, God I love quilts. Soft socks. A cup of tea. My dad’s bedhead, ever since he had chemo his hair is so hilarious. That note my girl wrote to herself that says, Mommy loves you. That feeling of kinship. Those times I look out a window and something there, the light just like that, screams, You are small but you are mighty.

I am not a winter person. Winter pretty much slays me like, “WHY DO I LIVE HERE? I CAN’T, I CAN’T, I CAN’T. But even this, even all of the cruelties of life, don’t they too have shimmering edges?

I’m not going to figure myself out and what I need and want and how to manage things all in one day. For now, I’m simply going to recognize I have met some sort of end. Maybe that’s what a midlife crisis is, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m here and I would like to stop doing things the way I’ve always done them. I’m not regretting or shaming myself for all the running and running, there has been so much good in it. I’m just tired now, and finally learning (maybe again?) that life is not about DOING all the time. It’s just not.