Wilting

Maybe it's just the heat, but we all seem to be melting down. Calvin and Penelope are up nearly as much of the night as I am, and days are both blurring by and yet painfully long. Working out what's next is impossible. And standing straight under the burden of what is seems impossible too. I keep thinking of seeds—in the hot, dry dirt, still managing to pop out and up and through. It does happen. Or maybe that's wrong, that's already passed. Now's the time of wilt. Reserves exhausted. I don't know. I'm waiting.

Is this typical?

Now that we've agreed to quit this thing, my husband seems, while sad, also happy. Little glimpses of the person I married are peeking through. A bicycle has appeared. Saturday morning breakfast has returned. It's like he's looking forward to his future again for the first time in a long while. It's gladdening. But it's also really sad, and hurts. I feel accountable. And I'm also, if I'm honest, jealous.

First trip in a few weeks to the coffee/cocoa/cookie shop this morning, chocolate immediately covering all shirts, followed by a first trip to the Mt. Horeb library. Wow! Two hours later, after watching Calvin play on the train table, the lego table, and in the castle with the dragon (and tell a little girl very seriously that it's not nice to push) we were off back home, where, showing off for Kari down by the barn, he took a slip and a good skid on his bum and eventually flat on his back through the mud and came up laughing. So much for the shoes that just came out of the wash, much less the clothes. An hour long bath, squirt toys in the lawn, Penelope's first playtime in the over-full kitchen sink, some sewing with Calvin directing from my lap, another hour pouring over Around the World with Mouk (again! I need to start looking up some of the foreign language words I don't know for him), and everyone, including dogs, is asleep momentarily. I do absolutely love these long days wholly absorbed in them. I wish I weren't reminded that sharing that love might be so nice, making what's bright even brighter. (And yes, making what's really hard a little less hard sometimes.) Still, I'll take what I can get. Off to see if I can nap for a moment too.