We've had over two weeks of sickness in our house. All of us had the stomach flu and now a treacherous cough. Both girls have had very high fevers. We took Teagan to the Emergency room earlier in the week after seven days of vomiting. It has been challenging but that instinctual mother has taken over and, when there is crisis, I operate very efficiently. We are all tired. I keep reiterating "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can." Lately all I can change is how I feel about the situation. I suppose that is the case with most things though, all we can really do is change our perception. Easier said than done.
This brings me to my birthday. I woke to a continuing downpour. The rain pooling in the driveway, grass saturated and flooded over. There was a time when I loved the rain. Before children. And as I sat holding Teagan against my chest, her face flushed with fever, I tried to remember what else I used to love. It isn't so much that those loves have passed but instead that what I once loved is so much more difficult now, to enjoy. I loved to run in the rain, come home take a long, hot shower and spend hour after hour writing. The winters I spent in New England proved to be my favorite season. But now, stuck in the house with two sick children... the rain seemed to mock me. What I can no longer do...
My aunt called to wish me a Happy Birthday. I cried. She said, "what makes you happy, Lani? " Running. And writing. And so I handed over Teagan to Brian and headed out the door. I was gone for most of an hour, and my brain was occupied by poetry. I began my run reciting a few of my favorite lines and those thoughts led me to some of my own writing and before long, I was consumed by my run in the pouring rain, my toes sloshing around my shoes, my shirt and running shorts slapping against my skin. I was cold and warm and completely captured by how much I love the rain, especially running in the rain and especially thinking about poetry while running in the rain.
So while changing my perception seems, at times, impossible, today I rallied the courage to remember what I love. Not what Tessa loves, not what Brian loves, but just me, all alone. Isolated. Today, I let myself for that hour, do what I love. Even though it wasn't a long run (which I usually like to do on my birthday) and even though I didn't write a poem, all I had to do in that hour was carry myself. And...
This is enough. This is enough. Today. On my birthday.
