visible

Today it's sunny and it's gorgeous. And it's too hot and the sun is too bright, after days of grey clouds and 60 degree highs. I want to go outside because it's pretty but I don't want to put on sunscreen. I am glad it's nice out but gloom is easier on my eyes and my skin. This is what my life is like right now. So many things are happening and I want to just take a step back, crawl back into bed and quit. And when I tell people it's too bright, they say, oh okay, go back inside for a few minutes, adjust to the light more slowly. But I don't want to.

I'm not very good with metaphors, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.

The point is, sometimes, I don't feel like a failure. Not often, not the time I'm home ignoring my kids so I can do homework and certainly not the time I'm spending arguing with my eldest child; not the time I'm spending trying to get referrals for my daughter and not the time I'm sitting on the floor crying; not the time I'm tired from staying up too late nor the time I'm trying to reschedule the appointments Karl missed because I wasn't home to take him to the doctor. Sometimes when I'm sitting in class and my Lit. instructor says that in 16 years of teaching, she has never considered my view point of the play we've just read, I feel like a person who has things to say, things someone will listen to, which is an amazing feeling given that usually I feel completely ignored by my family (pick that up, do your homework, flush the toilet, wash your hands). Sometimes when I get a paper back in Math and the instructor has written "interesting way to solve the problem!" or she tells me she's never seen someone solve another problem the way I did, I feel like a person with an interesting point of view. Sometimes, I feel like a person!

It's hard, this being a person thing. It means that I'm not always home for dinner. It means that I don't have time to snuggle at bedtime. It means Karl misses appointments. It means I sit on the floor and cry. It also means I get to leave my house and go to a magical place where people think I'm real. Where people think I have insight. Where people want to hear me and see me. It's hard. It's a really big adjustment for us all for me to keep doing everything I always do while spending hours every week being a person, but it's worth it.

And it's okay for me to sit on the floor and cry too. Sometimes I need that.