Cleaning out the Vent

{Before reading this post, please, kindly read the one right before it.}

I've felt really frustrated with myself lately.

Frustrated with what I cannot change about the way I work and frustrated even with my body.

When I feel frustrated, I like to do one of two things. Either isolate myself:  don't answer the phone or the door, don't engage in conversation, probably lose myself in a book or a project. It gives me time to work through whatever is bothering me or time for "it" to pass.

OR I throw myself into work. Generally physically exhausting. Allowing me to literally "work it out." Until I'm so tired that I can't think anymore. I love it.

However.

I don't know what to do with myself when neither option is available. I feel like a frenzied mess of emotion and stress that's caged up in my head. No release. And I still have to carry on in my role as mother, wife, and friend. I feel the way Lilie acts when she loses all reason and sense and just throws a raging, crazy, inconsolable, mad FIT. (My mom tells me that she once had a daughter that did the same thing . . .)

Unfortunately throwing a fit and hiding away are not options. Life has to continue.

And physically? Well, I've got a list of about 53 physical things that need to be completed - before this baby is born (among other things). I also have a husband (or do I?) that has been MIA at our house for the larger part of a month. He has been working like a demon to prepare for "Convention" - which he left for this morning at 3:30 AM and will not return from until after I have had another hellish "Sunday with a 17-Month-Old." (Last week was NOT pretty.)

So I begin. I'll do it all myself! Just watch me!

I get into it. I work hard for hours. I feel pleased with the progress I've made. I sit down . . . for just a few minutes . . .

. . . and then my body remembers that it's due to have a baby IN ONE MONTH. That I'm carrying around an extra 30-40 pounds of weight. That hormones have loosened all the ligaments in my body and when I stand up again, there will probably be pieces of me left behind on the couch. Never to be reattached. For days afterward, I hobble around like I've got arthritis.

And then I'm caged up again. I can't "work it out" and I can't "hide" because I'm Mom. And Dad is gone. Working with no break in sight. For either of us. I'm all there is.

So I feel mad at my body and mad at my brain. Who both seem to be conspiring against me at the moment. Mad that I can't work as hard as I'd like and mad that I can't seem to just be patient or to stop thinking. I want to just throw a "Lilie Fit". After all, that's the reason that she throws them, too -- because she can't make or FORCE things be the way she wants them to be and she doesn't know what to do with it. (You see? I understand my girl. I had to live with someone who acted the same way growing up. {wink})

Now, the point of this post was not only to vent my feelings, but to also help myself see . . . better.

Today, Nels may be gone again. Today my house may look like a muddy Violet tornado had free reign yesterday (it did). Today there may . . . well, we're not going to go any further down this road. There's no end in sight. Today, there may be a lot to do.

But yesterday. Yesterday I was able to clean up the yard. I mowed and weed whacked. I organized my "clean-up crew" of little women to pick up the papers and the toys and the tools and shoes and cups and neighbors toys . . . that had been scattered all over the yard. I swept off the back patio. I raked up all the pine needles piled inches deep underneath our back trees. I showered, I did my hair(!), and even made lunch. And then Nels came home. To me. And even though he wasn't feeling really well and had stayed up until 3:00 the night before working on the basement wall, he went downstairs without complaining and finished putting up the sheetrock. He helped me find a friend with a pickup and loaded up the old fence, the discarded doors, the broken paneling, the broken chairs, and the yard debris to be taken to the dump. He didn't complain about having leftovers for dinner and then took us all to get frozen yogurt.

I wasn't really sore last night either.

And as disconnected from it as I might feel, I'm only a MONTH from my due date! With my FIFTH baby! I may not be the same as I was with baby #1 or even baby #3, but my body still knows how to work hard and do hard things. - Like growing babies. And breathing. :)

I need to be more thankful for my body. It's cool.

And I need to be more thankful for my brain. It can do awesome things like trick my body into not getting sore just because Nels is around and I'm happy.

And I need to be more thankful for my daughters. They are truly amazing. And have been incredible helpers with cleaning and getting along and putting up with my "crazies" and keeping an eye on the Tornado.

And I need to be more thankful for my little curly-headed Tornado. Watching her sit on my bedroom floor trying on shoes while alternately singing to her baby doll and examining the hundreds of safety pins spilled all over the floor is perfection. As is her "I Wu Voo" and conversation about "shooies".

More thankful for a husband who loves me so much that he spends the few "free" hours he's had in the past month doing projects for ME.

And more thankful for amazing friends who are so willing so serve.

I am blessed.

Bottom line:  I think gratitude is the answer.