Hmm. It appears I have been lax in my blogging duties. Several weeks have gone by--several extraordinary weeks--and I have not blogged about them once. Perhaps this has been a case of living so intensely for this short while that I was unable to distance myself enough to write about it. I sincerely hope that's over.
For most of my life I've had this silent voice-over running through my head during any halfway-interesting occurrence, wherein I figure out how I would describe it in writing. I can't really help it; it just happens. But I do find that as I search for the right words and phrases to capture the moment, that moment becomes...a little blunted. Whatever extremes of joy or sorrow I'm feeling, the edges aren't quite so sharp after I've mentally written it down for posterity. Coping mechanism? Perhaps. Mental instability? Possibly. Although I prefer to think of it as "destined to be a writer". And I have actually been very surprised in my adulthood to find that not everyone has this voice--unless you're all lying to me?
But these last few weeks have been so very intense (at least at first) and then so very busy (up until this very moment--have to run Hallie to school, be right back) that my voice-over has been, for the first time I can remember, silent. It's a little eerie.
So, even though my helpful inner writer has not actually helped with these past weeks, here's what I've been up to:
Colin started Kindergarten. That was pretty emotional and overwhelming, but nothing compared to the moment when, an hour into his first day, I got the call that he'd broken his arm. So many panicky, chaotic moments jammed into that day...I don't even know if I can describe them. But here's the thing...from the safe distance of 3-plus weeks later, I can know, rationally, that a broken arm is not that huge a deal in the greater scheme, totally fixable, happens to tons of kids, perhaps even most. But those of you with young children, go look at their perfect little limbs that you've kissed since they were babies...that smooth, unmarred skin...and imagine seeing a bleeding wound, and an extra elbow in a terribly wrong place. At the time, it seemed pretty darn horrible enough--and not a single trauma-blunting voice to be found. I felt every particle...my baby was HURT. Weird how I can switch back and forth between that moment and feel it just as sharply all over again--I mean, I could let myself go and just sob--and then snap back to the day-to-day minutia of helping him do stuff with one hand. More coping mechanisms, I'm guessing.
So there's the emotional intensity, enough to last me for a while...and meanwhile, life goes on at blinding speed, and I'm struggling desperately to keep up with this whole school regime. Two kids on two schedules that I've barely got a grip on--and I know some other moms with three or four, which completely boggles my brain. Just getting up every day when it's still dark out is a near-fatal shock to my so-not-a-morning-person system. I feel like those letters should be capitalized: EVERY DAY. Then once I realize I'm really, truly, brutally awake, I have to fly into action, cooking and packaging and exhorting (but sweetly) and dressing flailing limbs when cooperation fails and then exhorting some more (less sweetly). I realize mothers everywhere have had to adjust to this same phenomenon for generations, but I still feel woefully unprepared, and like I want to shake somebody and say, "Do you get it?? Every day!!" Strangely, I get little sympathy with this approach. Huh.
I wonder just how long it will take to adapt to this new, exhausting way of life (it hasn't even been four full weeks yet). And I also wonder if I will still be able to hear that little voice-over in the midst of all this doing, or if it's been stunned into silence for good. Mental defect or not, I kinda miss it.
P.S.
My husband pointed out that I didn't include another hugely traumatic upheaval, and that I would spoil the chronological flow if I tried to throw it in later, but I am insisting that Hallie's Self-Applied Haircut is its own, free-standing blog entry. So I'm not talking about it now.
