It's like this

It's like this. You get to 41, almost 42, and you hurt. You're tired and need medication to stay awake during the day and by the end of it, you hurt so bad you almost cry when you lie down in bed.

Your weekends are spent shuttling kids around, kids you love more than anything and used to lie next to in bed and sob thinking of how much life would hurt them as they got older. God I don't want you to hurt.

You go to church after a month away, you keep trying and it keeps not working, you feel like it's broken or maybe you're broken or maybe God is trying to show you something. And your new pastor has done some ugly ass shit to your sanctuary and you realize that the word sanctuary applies here. Not only are there now ugly handrails in the sanctuary but this new priest has wrecked the sanctuary you used to have in your cozy little south side church. And you don't know what to do.

The department of transportation seems hell bent on ruining your life specifically with the highway shutdowns and bridge closings and ridiculous roadwork.You don't even have road rage anymore. Just road-numb.

Your knee breaks down and you have surgery and find out it was more broken down than you ever could have thought.

You stand in the frozen food aisle on a Sunday night and kind of break down in a softer way than your knee has, overcome by exhaustion and the dull aching pain that covers your body.

You drive home on automatic knowing that 5:37 in the morning is going to hit hard, you are going to lean over to your bedtable and stare at the electronic device beeping at you and you won't even believe it is time to start moving again.

You have three doctors appointments to look forward to at the beginning of the week--two for yourself and one for a child who has started to hurt and the pediatrician isn't listening.

You will stand in your classroom, engaged and obliterated, ignoring the pain and laughing with your middle school students who come to your room knowing that they get 45 minutes without so much drudgery and hurt. You do that for them. You pour it out every day all day long. And then your colleagues wonder why you can't eat in the lounge.

Because you hurt. And you're tired. And you're allergic to leather and your sandals are making your feet itch. And you just need 45 minutes to watch youtube videos designed to make you cry good tears because otherwise you're going to cry real ones.

But it's like this as well. You daughter makes the best chocolate cake you've ever had and you sit in bed with your blog no one reads and eat that cake and rest your knee and wish you still had some percoset but really, you're glad you don't and maybe the tylenol will work. The tylenol and warm bath and a bit of chocolate cake and maybe you'll take a couple benadryl because the leather sandals and the bonus might be sleep, rock hard sleep.

You text a friend and she tells you about her day, her kids, her pain, her loves. And you don't feel so alone.

And you start to kind of hope. Yes, 5:37 is going to be really hard in just a few hours. Yes, you're going to pour your life out to 13 year old kids all day long all week long, but you know they'll give back because they can't even help but give back.

Yes, it is a long time and miles to go before you sleep again but you will, and maybe there'll be good news from doctors and less pain and more hope for the next day and the next and the next and your daughter will be in plays and your other daughter will win tennis matches and your son will become a minecraft master for whatever that will do for him and you will keep breathing and thinking and loving and being.

It's just like this.