It would be so easy if emotions could be compartmentalized, if I could allow how I feel about one area of my life to not influence things in other areas. I’ve used this space for so many things, it has has been a place to chronicle parenthood, to mark the passage of time, to quest, rail and reflect. I am working hard to traverse the ever-changing landscape of working and parenting. I thought three was different when I couldn’t manage a trip solo in those first months after Finley was born. Ha!

1st grade.

Pre-school.

Pre-pre-school.

Bus.

Car.

Office.

Memberships.

Committees.

Bands.

This doesn’t even touch on health. Granted, I am still recovering, my energy slowly, so freaking slowly, inching its way up. I had set a goal of designating time for me to do yoga once we moved. The girls were going to learn to swim. Go to camp. Sean was going to work out. So many things I wanted to do, but in the same way that emotions get twisted up in actions, hopes gets tangled up in obligations.

When does my duty as a mom trump my responsibilities as a business owner?

When does wife precede mom?

Mine beat theirs?

How do I allow myself to rue certain losses as a woman while teaching my daughters to accept when things don’t go their way?

Black and white seems to be doing battle with grey and all that is left is this very unsatisfying yet indisputable watered-down and disappointing film, no color, no texture, just weight and impediment.

I have dear friends writing letters soliciting prayers for sick loved ones, friends right in town enduring the passage-before-their-eyes of loved ones in the palliative leg of illness. For every complaint I have, there is a blessing.

I am finding myself beneath a craggy tree, equal parts wondrous and hideous, ungainly limbs protruding at unexpected angles, but from their farthest points swing succulent fruit. I am torn between hoarding the fruit, its sweet juices dripping down my arms and sating the deepest corners of my soul and attacking the branches and cursing them for their refusal to grow the way I want, for eclipsing the sun from the direction I had wanted other limbs to grow.

A friend directed me to an article today

But I am glad. No summer lasts forever, and no childhood does. The sweetness of the time springs from its short supply, like the three or four raspberries I sometimes find dangling from a single plant along my driveway.

I know that this is the truth. It is all worth it, all maddening, because of how it is. I do not apologize for the young girl in me that is standing, fists clenched and nose wrinkled, glaring at the stars for not getting her way. I think that in the same way that the time is sweet for how fleeting it is, the passion is that much deeper for how hard we fight for it, how fearlessly we dive and how long we freeze the frames.