This has been without question one of the most exhausting and challenging weeks I can remember. I find myself stuck in a place of forced silence. Things at work are intense and all-consuming, but not of a nature that we can share. Some of the experiences with kindergarten and pre-school are things that I can’t describe for the preservation of the girls’ privacy or my own inclusion in day-to-day things. This is to say that boy, oh boy do I have opinions and stories, but I am in the unoriginal position of needing to zip it, because it all touches so many more people now.

It is as if the lines of my life have slowly, unbeknownst to me, shifted so close as to become inextricably linked to one another making compartmentalization impossible. There is less me and much more of everyone else, perhaps it’s an overdue realization that while I am my own protagonist, it’s only in my mind that I play that role. I am treading along the shores of judger, villainess and detached narrator.

I miss writing, longing for the connection, either in reading my own words days or weeks after I’ve written them and going back to a moment in time or the friends I’ve made. I’ve been having every bit as many magical moments with the girls, more even, yet I sit frozen instead of fingers racing across the keys.

Lovely. This is not meant to be a dark post, because I think if anything, you know I am not dark. Lately as my awareness of the egos and sensitivities of others has grown, my own worries of looking the fool have fallen completely to the wayside. I took Fin and Ave with me to pick Briar up from school the other day. We were early (this would mean so much more if I explained the harrowing experience of being late (#abjectfailureasamom). The girls got understandably antsy and I eventually gave into their please to get out of the wagon.

Ave struck immediately for the dirt, knees akimbo and the tiniest bit of toddle crack peeking out of her jeans. Fin tried to follow suit, but on her way to a squat, she felt too much like dancing. She began to do what looked like a stab at doing the twist while trying to jump with cement blocks on her feet. She looked at me with such pride and delight, her dancing eyes tittered, “You catching this, mama? You see what I am doing? It’s like dancing or jumping, mm-hmm.” Ave shook her head and looked up from under her impossibly thick bangs and began to chuckle.

Fin was looking at me expectantly and I didn’t disappoint. I swung my arms in front of me and then back, she watched, mystified as I did it again. I looked to Avery and back to Fin, both were transfixed as I swung my arms once more and then leapt into the air. Their eyes popped and I just kept going. I am fairly sure I looked like an over-caffeinated and uncoordinated orangutang. I remember finishing my impromptu performance and thinking, “I used to blog about this sort of thing.”

I actually thought about how I’d describe the way the mulch in Finley’s hair made me realize how much red she has in her hair, or how the way she held the sticks to scratch aside the soil, her fingers looked like a baby’s. Ave’s skin was something too, so creamy and clear, the lines of her jaw equal parts baby and little girl. And there was more, as I watched Briar run to her sisters, such delight at the perceived fanfare of a pick-up entourage.

But I didn’t write.

Until now.

So, while I have felt a bit numb, I’m not quite.

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