Just So Happy

I must have said these words to Nik a dozen times or so lately.

I'm just so happy.

I wasn't so sure after returning from Houston. I felt nervous. Anxious. Stressed out. All in a very general way. And I suppose it was very natural -- Big Changes were afoot. But then I started digging in and doing what needed to be done and before long I was coming up to the surface for long gulps of cool, satisfying air. Slowly but surely I'm shedding the stress of my soon-to-be former job and I'm circling the wagons around what is most important to me: my family.

The most immediate improvement is my sense of rhythm. Not in a musical way. Mercy, no. That would require some kind of act of God. This is more of a coming together with my kids in a synchronized way. And now that I am becoming practiced at it I see how much it had been lacking in our lives. Nik and I have always prided ourselves on managing our lives in such a way that we were mostly home with the kids -- one of us or the other. But the trade-off to this commitment was the logistics of it all. It was exhausting.

Imagine, for instance, that Oliver was on one of his no-sleep benders. Night after night of not anything like a full night's sleep, Nik and I jockeying to see who could squeeze in an extra half-hour of sleep before the alarm clock went off. And anyway you looked at it, I would still have to be to work by 7:30, Nik by 9:00. But, as I ease out of my job, I have had the luxury of ignoring the alarm clock. When Oliver woke in the night I could let Nik sleep. Oliver, Sami and I, could stay in bed until 9:00 if we wanted to. We weren't marching to anyone's drum but our own and we were setting the tempo. And when it was a particularly difficult night, we could pile in the car and get a bagel or go to the pancake house: none of us cranky, none of us rushed. It has been Mar-ve-lous!

I'm also allowing myself, more and more, to give Oliver the gift of time. Not more of my time -- he already has most of it. But rather, processing time. Do you know how hard it is to wait for 45 seconds? 45 seconds is a ridiculously long time to wait for a response. But sometimes that is what he needs. And if I'm in too much of a hurry to get some thing or some where then I am surely losing something in the process.

Anyway, I'm just so very happy these days. Big Changes are afoot. And it is all good.