Time to Exhale

I am very sensitive to noise-overload. Perhaps it is better phrased as 'sensory overload'. My days have been extremely noisy lately.

I have been craving quiet and solitude. A lot. I gave myself the gift of 'a day' on Saturday and I have been playing catch-up ever since...

I felt guilty for it. The phone was at my side on my self-imposed day of solitude and I willed it not to ring. It didn't. Until it did.

It was good that the phone rang. It brought the gift of friendship into my day of 'inhaling' and my friends are as vital as oxygen and water to me . The downside is that I have been trying to 'exhale' ever since and I haven't found the opportunity to do so.

A day of absorbing the world was exactly what I needed. I let the day unfold as naturally as it could. I watched movies. Some were deep. Others weren't. But I found gifts in the shallowest of things on Saturday. Because I was breathing in the day.

I read. I bought the book "Carry On, Warrior" by Glennon Doyle Melton. I stumbled upon Glennon's blog innocently enough (I love days that allow me to follow where ever a computer link may lead). I would love to buy a dozen copies of this book and spread them around whenever I see someone who may benefit from it. These words speak so loudly to me and I interpret them on so many different levels. I love where this author's words take me ...

I inhaled so deeply that I was filled to the brim. I invited friendship into that oxygenated state and I was met with so many more words to inhale. I had so much to say ... then the real world came crashing in on me.

I had to work on Sunday. I have honed the art of procrastination and hadn't completed the job that I had to do at home, before I returned to my work place. I crammed in as much as I could before I had to go to my job but I had underestimated the time it would take to do the job and I was quite literally running out the door (I skidded out in the middle of the living room in my race against time) to make it to work in time.

I worked over six hours. I had to buy groceries on the way home. I didn't walk in the door until 6:30 and supper was necessary. I wanted it to be another fend-for-yourself-night, but we have had so many of those lately that I couldn't deny my son the pizza he asked for. So I combined picking up said pizza, with another errand that I had not run (due to my Saturday-of-inhaling). I got home at 9 p.m. and I still hadn't eaten supper. I needed to have a shower. It was 10:00 before I sat down. I had words bottled up inside of me with no energy or time left in the day to put a voice to them ...

I woke up at 5 a.m. yesterday and chose to stay in bed until 5:30. Big mistake. I could have used that 30 minutes. I needed to write. I needed to exhale but the day got in the way.

My daycare charges are draining every ounce of energy that I have in me. They need something. All day. All of the time. Except when they sleep. I made one more mistake yesterday. I took that nap time and spent it on matters of an income tax kind. I unearthed a small mystery that consumed every breath that was already consumed in a very kid-oriented day. The mystery was not completely unravelled until last night.

The day was spent and so was I.

So when I woke up at 5 a.m. once again this morning, I heeded that call and got up. I was greeted with messages in my inbox which I responded to. Again, there was more to 'inhale', than I had time to 'exhale' completely.

The clock was ticking. My son wanted the computer. I was five minutes away from the onset of my daycare day. I asked my son for those last five minutes on the computer.

I raced to update my daycare blog as my first family walked in the door. The day began like every other. The challenges of the day ahead were set before me. I looked at my son and asked him how was I going to do this for ten more hours. He understood exactly what I was saying. As he left for school, he wished me well with my day. The words came from a place in his heart. He not only knew what I was thinking, he knew what I was feeling.

All that I was feeling was validated in that very moment. It was enough. Because here I am.

I have rerouted my strategies today and I have a completely different game plan in mind. Two out of four of 'my kids' called in and told me that they will not be coming today. I have an opportunity to redo yesterday because I have the same two children that I feel that I 'failed' yesterday, here for a do-over.

The strategy is working. Because I have sat still and had an opportunity to breathe out the entirety of this blog post with almost no interruptions as they play contentedly at my side. They are getting along. They are acting in age-appropriate ways (my two-year-old that has honed the art of copying his one-year-old buddy has so completely that he has absorbed her ways, tones and inflections that I cannot honestly tell one voice apart from the other).

I need time to exhale all of the words that my day of 'inhaling' has wrought. I have so much to say and little time to say it. I feel slightly asthmatic as I deal with an excess of incoming 'air' and the lack of ability to breathe it out.

Today begins the process of exhaling...