Gratitude

I wrote this two days ago but needed time to decide if I was comfortable sharing it...

A number of thoughts coming together here:

So the past few days I've been pretty sick. Last time according to my blog was Feb. 20, so that's almost two months. Not bad. And I have to say that ND is AMAZING. On Monday we didn't have to go to school/work anyway because flooding closed my work. Then Tuesday I stayed home with a cold. On both of those days, ND let me sleep in... on Monday until 10!!! (I say no more lest I jinx it.)

In any case, today we both returned to our daily routine and, being sick, I found it very hard to face the day.

Now, another thought that I was having back in Portland...

during my visit there I saw a number of long-time friends including two of my blog readers. They have known me long enough to have seen me at my worst in a number of contexts, and it's really scary for me, even now, to know that they've seen me say and do things I would never say or do now. It's humbling to think that we get along just fine and that our friendships only seem stronger over time.

So now, today, as I was feeling woozy and having trouble facing the day, I realized just how much of my life I have woken up and felt some kind of fear or dread about the thought of getting up. I don't think I mean hard to face the day in terms of depression, but a lot harder than just wanting to sleep some more. I mean waking up with major anxiety, racing thoughts, worries, fear etc. It's taken years of work to help me with this -- meditation and physical activity have been the best for me. I suppose it also helps to have fewer work hours.

But there has been a much much bigger and more fundamental shift.

It could be that my life has stabilized more, that I have been teaching long enough to have greater confidence in myself and to understand that a day is just a day.

But could it really, more than that, simply be that I'm a mother?

I still can't get over how much fear I was sort of told to have leading up to motherhood about how hard it could be. But today I was chatting with a student who has two siblings. She even said how hard it will be when (if) I have more children. But I explained to her that although my routine is definitely more complicated than it ever was, I'm also happier than I've ever been before.

The only thing that really comes in the way is something I'm experiencing this very moment, as I write about this gratitude, and that's the utter, paralyzing fear that this somehow could change. I think I would feel that way even if I hadn't experienced a life-threatening illness, but after the cancer, it's much greater. And along with that fear is a fear of even talking about the fear. So with that, I finish this post.