Last Laugh

Its a funny thing how life ebbs and flows...One day the world is yours for the taking, and the next you feel like the butt of a joke everyone is in on except you. Or is that just me? Please tell me its not.

Our days are unpredictable right now. Dealing with an injured little kid and a puppy and jobs and neglected friends and what the fuck are we going to have for dinner and omg it snowed overnight and now my car is buried and we're out of money until payday and you KNOW that big ER bill is coming and so are the holidays and the puppy just peed on the rug and and and...

...its exhausting. And really seems like someone, somewhere is laughing their ass off at the silly people killing themselves just to make it through the day.

But the strange thing is: its sort of fulfilling in a really weird, masochistic way. While (most days, really) I dream of being able to lounge around all day in yoga pants, eating popcorn and reading fiction, in reality I know that if I were granted that wish and my days were suddenly emptied of supermom/wife/employee-dom, I'd feel...empty. Purposeless. Are you with me? Anyone?

I'm realizing that it feels like This is what I'm supposed to be doing right now. This crazy, exasperating, exhausting, maniacal dance of day to day life. I'm really in It. Immersed. As Royal Tenenbaum says, "fightin' and scrappin' and lovin' every minute with this damn crew."

Which is not to say that I don't need more time for myself. Because I do. I know I do. There have been moments in the last week where I have felt dangerously close to completely losing my shit. But I'm reciting the old, worn out mother's mantra: This too shall pass. And it will. And honestly, I think I will look back fondly on these days.

Because along with the aggravating things, the beating-me-over-the-head-with-a-brick-things, there are also magic moments: A little boy's delighted giggle when a soft, warm puppy snuggles his legs. Meeting the amused gaze of my husband across the dinner table as the same blue-eyed boy recites Where the Wild Things Are almost verbatim, from memory. Crawling into a warm, down comforter-covered bed after a long, silent walk in the snow.

So really. If this is all a joke, I kind of feel like I might be getting the last laugh. Sort of.

I'll leave you with a crappily taken cell-phone picture of what it looks like outside my office window today: