Dawn, but in the Mind
In a few days, my eldest child will turn seven. That's seven years where the priorities of being a parent has taken precedence over everything else. Really, it's almost eight -- becomming a parent starts long before a child is born.
It's been a long time.
Now that my youngest is actually leaving my side for a few days a week, I have something that I never thought I would get again: time!
It is such a strange feeling, because the last eight years have really been an onslaught. My weight has slipped. My body has become a sluggish, distasteful thing. I see myself in the mirror and cringe. I hate photos of myself. I just don't feel like me anymore. And it's not just my body: my mind has slipped, too. A year ago I wondered if I could ever get back to where I was. Could I ever use my brain again? It was a real fear, because the early childhood years feel like such an assault on the senses that it doesn't seem possible that things can go back the way they were.
And it is amazing how much that turned out to be false. And it didn't take long, either. It was like watching the sunrise: there was a hint that change was around the corner, and then dawn hit and the change is here and all of a sudden that long, cold night is gone, forgotten, might as well never have been.
Right now, I am basking in the sunshine of available time, and it is glorious. I've cleaned out my storeroom, I've cleaned out my garage. I've started a novel. I've cooked amazing food. I'm more present with the kids. I'm starting to reclaim a social life. I'm more relaxed. I'm less tense. I've started a diet, started lifting weights again. I go for a walk in the forest most nights. I'm reading almost every night, just before bed. I'm spending less money on junk.
But, like every dawn, I know that midnight must surely be coming. This new-found time won't last forever. I imagine myself outdoors on a cold, dark night. I know what that's like. It's like there was never a morning at all, and surely there will never be another. But, of course, there is, and there will be. It just takes an age for the dawn to come.
As I'm writing this, I've had a really rough night with hardly any sleep. I blame the cats: they were chasing each other past midnight, and every time I fell asleep they would wake me up. It was unsettling, because I couldn't see them and I had no idea what they were doing. I thought they were hurt, that something was attacking them -- these thoughts came to me almost undoubtedly because they had woken me just as I was starting to dream. I went and turned on the light and they looked at me, sheepish. They were just playing.
So I'm writing this after a horrid night's sleep and I have still accomplished so much today. A year ago, this would have put me into a pit of despair. I wouldn't have been able to adjust my life to make a bad night's sleep work. I would have had to just go with it. Just keep working. Keep pushing through.
But it's not a year ago. It's today. And today I've reclaimed the day, made it my own. The exhaustion is still there. I can feel it behind my eyes. But it hasn't slowed me down. If anything, taking the day to rest has probably super-charged my year. I just managed to get so much done that projects have opened up that were closed before. Fancy that: one day to open up a half-dozen projects.
So if anybody is reading this and they're a parent to young children and all you can think of is 'this will never end, this will always be hard' ... The dawn is coming. It might be a little bit away for you, but it will be there.
And never forget, when you're basking in sunshine, that eventually it must be midnight again. Make it count.