Today started at 4am, which is particularly painful when yesterday finished well after midnight. I drove two of my three children to school, and one of my three children sat at the dining room table with a friend in front of their respective computers, muttering things like, 'I'm a zombie', 'I'm the last human', 'You're going to die!', 'I just ate raw chicken'. Good work all round.
I spent my morning in slow mode, hanging out a little bit of washing, making a little bit of food, thinking a little bit of thoughts. Thoughts that went something like, listen people. Listen. You are not broken. Not screwed up, not a lost cause, not hopeless. Not now, not then, not ever. What needs fixing in you are not those things you are ashamed of. You don't need a better background, or nicer house, a kinder friend, a lover, better job, or more, more, more, to make things okay. Wholeness is found in the midst of all those things in your life you think shouldn't be there. In the lack of all those things you think should. Because it isn't things at all; it's the appreciation of this one breath, right here, right now.
I get a bit grandiose on lack of sleep.
The girls arrive home, red faced and tired. Eilidh's friends are all in her class, bar one, but she is miffed they didn't win the something-or-other competition between classes, and only came in second. They tried very hard. We did bend the rules a little bit, she said. Bent them, but didn't break them. How does that work, I asked? Aren't rules a little bit like dry spaghetti? Bending is just the process of breaking.
Well, she said. We wet the spaghetti.
Right, then. Eilidh FTW.
