cheered

When I get a chance to sit lately, it’s felt like coming off a long shift in some over-houred factory. I’m tired. We had much stuff packed into the past three months. Not as much as many of you did, I’m sure, but for me it’s been way more than usual.

Reaching the final days of this year is maybe reaching a crossroads, and maybe an end, to a phase in my journey. I won’t go into detail here, because much remains to be processed in my head and heart. I’m a slow digester. Pretty much I’m slow at everything, truth be told.

But around noon today I did something swift and shiny. After dropping Victoria off for a shift at her bookstore job on her birthday, I zipped around heavy traffic zones and over to the local running store, where I spent Christmas money on new magic shoes. They were sale priced $35 off what I paid for the same model last year. Yippee for treadmilling in continued comfort. (And yes, it’s a place where they refer to pairs of shoes by make and model, and the running socks I had money left over to buy are designed, I think, by MIT graduates.)

Back at home I sat by the fire (it was kind to me all day), reading Bob Welch’s latest book, Pebble in the Water. Bob’s a great local columnist. He’s been working at writing his own stuff, apart from his newspaper day job, for many years and has gleaned much wisdom from the process. I’m enjoying following his experiences.

I also paused to reflect back on the day I first became a mom, thanks to Victoria entering the world at 12:03 a.m. another December 26. Refusing Christmas baby status, she grasped her own date, a portent of her method for living in years to come. I recall the slowness and difficulty in my initial efforts to nurse her. The day was long, with festive, excited visitors and little chance for privacy to grapple with something I’d so wanted to do – care for my firstborn infant. After everyone had gone home and while my babe slept in the room with all those hospital bassinets down the hall, I wept into my pillow. Hormones and fears of failure brought me way low.

An odd sound lifted my head. One of the doctors peered around my curtain, an inflated surgical glove covering his scalp, clucking like a chicken.

He could see my red eyes and I was embarrassed, but it was okay. He’d been around awhile. He knew. What a blessing – his goofy actions spoke volumes – I wasn’t the only one who’d been here. Things would work their way out.

I’d give a lot to be able to comfort someone like that. Some days others of you who blog give people you barely know the same sort of gift. You have creative, thoughtful, and zany ways of helping me remember I’m not the only one who’s been here; things will work their way, somehow, at least you’ve seen it happen.

And that counts for lots as we birth another year.