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EmailI like words. Words motivate me, heal me, make me stronger and help me find peace. I read quotes, daily, for all of those reasons.
I started looking for words about loyalty to put with a picture of my dog for today’s slacker post; my favorite of which was, “If you want loyalty, get a dog. If you want loyalty and attention, get a smart dog.” – Grant Fairley
But, while I was looking, I found words that are very much human, instead.
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And, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Commitment to school, work, eating right, relationships, exercise – commitment is what holds everything together. Have you ever reached a goal without it?
I’ve been committed to doing a lot of work on my exterior in the past, but as I’m getting older I see the need for more work on my interior. I have some broken parts, literally and figuratively, and unfortunately they are not fixed with beer and chocolate.
So, I’m making a big commitment to myself today. I’m not going to share it here, because it’s MY commitment to MYSELF, but if I succeed I promise I’ll let you in on it in the spring.
If I don’t succeed, I’ll probably tell you that too.
My 12 year old son came home with a monumental packet of papers on Ancient Civilizations tonight. There were 10 pages of notes fastened to the back of it. In total, he handed me 48 pages on Aztecs, Mississippians, Mayans and Incas, then exclaimed, “This is ALL on the test tomorrow!”
Tomorrow.
After I finished work and made dinner, I borrowed some blank notecards from my daughter and got to work listing the key facts, dates, and giving him anagrams to remember information.
“The Incas were from PEACH, but it’s a B instead of an H. Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and Boliva. Or, it could be BEACH, with a P instead of the H. Either way, there’s an EACH in there, but the H is really a P or a B. Got it?”
I won’t tell you what I did with the Mayans BEGHM. Okay, it was BEGAN, but the A is really an H and the N is really an M. I WAS HELPING HIM THE ONLY WAY I KNEW HOW, PEOPLE.
After nearly two hours of this desperation and certainty of his failure, a few minutes ago he looked at me and said, “Mom, there is one good thing about this test.”
“Really? What could be good about needing to know all this information by tomorrow?”
With no idea of the palpitations I had been having for the last 120 minutes he took a matter-of-fact tone and said, “Well, I’m allowed to look at my notes.”
Today, somewhere between having to help my 80 year old mother, a parent-teacher conference, work, the grocery store, making dinner, school drop-off and pick-up, our third showing in 24 hours (anyone want to buy a house?), and all other situations faced by a sandwich-generation-special-needs-parent-homework-helping-homemaker-full-time-employee-mom-wife. I felt like life was slapping me in the face today.
I couldn’t bear to take on. One. More. Thing.
That’s when I found this among the sheets I pulled from the dryer.
And, I was so desperate to fill my soul with something sweet that I almost ate it. After it had been stuffed in the laundry chute with dirty clothes, washed in detergent and bleach, then dried with a dryer sheet. I mean, the wrapper hadn’t broken so it was still good, right?
Then there was a knock at the door and some guy standing there asking, “Are you Diana?” which I’m totally not, but I nodded anyway and he handed me these.
It turns out, that when you’re having a really dark day, washed and dried mini-Twix bars are not the answer; good friends who send you emergency flowers are. Thank you, Melisa.
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