One of those days — Becca Stanley

Feb 6

Feb 6 One of those days

Yesterday was one of those days. You know, the kind where you slip out of bed on the wrong side. My sinuses are swollen, and I try unsuccessfully to stop myself from blaming the weather, the flip-flipping temperatures I can never quite stay on-top-of.

Adam calls me, tells me he clipped a car with the 15 passenger van he had to drive to work instead of his bike because I am out of town and he is covering morning drop-off. Jayci calls from school, a mysterious stomach bug that somehow has faded even more mysteriously by the time I get home that afternoon to find her playing a game on the babysitter’s phone.

I shared my story last night, the one I don’t usually want anyone to know. So perhaps this is a vulnerability hangover, or the hormonal culmination of the beginning of my monthly guest.

All I know is that I am frustrated and cranky, certain I am doing everything for everyone with not one iota of gratitude or help (this is not strictly true, just how I feel).

When I shared my story, they all told me it’s ok. To offer myself grace. I am annoyed they are letting me off the hook, the one I‘m certain belongs perpetually at the back of my neck.

The weather is perfect, 69 degrees in February, and I’m even a little grouchy about it. Why is it so warm in February when we had a snow day last week? Darn global warming.

I try to watch the State of the Union, telling the high school boy who is over to work on a science project with Adam’s help that it’s only because I feel like I should. But I am bored and annoyed, heading early to slip between my sheets and between the pages of my latest book, Praying for Sheetrock.

I am not the hero, and he is not the villain. I don’t know how to make my kids care enough but not too much. How to raise them to protect their hearts, these well-springs of life, while also living with an open one. Open-minded will never be enough. Open-hearted is the end-game, but it’s scary as hell. Vulnerable, unprotected, no guarantees my bones will knit back together to protect me from pain. Open-hearted. Letting them in and myself out. Over and over again.