Movement

 It is 1:45 AM. I am up nursing my sweet three month old baby and I want to write. 

Last night while Blair was snuggling Ana and I was with the big kids encouraging them to pick up Ellie asked me if I would read more of our big chapter book to them. 

After a long day of co-op, dinner, little girls…I didn’t want to if I’m being honest. I told Ellie that. 

“Ellie I’m tired tonight I still have to clean the kitchen and try to get some sleep before Daisy wakes up and fold that last basket of laundry.” 

My seven year casually says, “can’t you make Daddy do it?” 

I said “Well Ellie I don’t *make* Daddy *do* anything. I ask for his help and he helps me because we’re a team and we love each other. But some days Daddy is even more tired than Mama.”

Then we talked about wirk and why Blair goes to work. Every now and again my kids do this, they get sad Blair can’t be home with us and mention that they wish he could be home. When that happens, I like to remind them *why* Blair goes to work. 

Them. He works because he loves them. He makes sure we can pay our bills because he loves us. 

Usually then the conversation shifts to what I do to show them I love them. I mention clean laundry, food made, hush when they’re hurt, or even just that I wake up some days when id rather not. 

Or I read an entire chapter sitting on their floor watching Ellie inch closer and closer to me because she so invested in what we’re reading. 

Motherhood, parenthood, is so messy and requires so much Grace. And so much action. It’s an *active* love. 

I thought about that today when at co-op my friend got up and went across the room to help a two year old who was just so excited to play with friends, but was so excited right when we were trying to eat our lunches. I’m a “yell across the room” type of Mama but after being friends with her, watching her connect physical and take action to discipline or distract I’ve adopted some of her ways. 

To change the behaviors it took action. Movement. Physically getting up and DOING. 

Lately one of my best friends has mentioned that she is not good at waiting, but wants to be doing something while waiting. Or taking steps forward while waiting. She has so much love to give…that love seeks action. Movement. 

As I sit here in the quiet listening to this three month guzzle and snuffle and curl into me, as I hear the low hum of the still going ac unit and Blairs feet shifting in his blanket, I am just so thankful for the way love manifests and moves. 

I think for the past five years I have, overall, felt so paralyzed by so much. Heart surgeries, medications, a colicky baby, brain cancer, death…I have been non-stop flight or fight for nearly five years. More if I’m being honest. 

I have been brought to my knees in grief over the loss of my babies. I have begged God to let Dean live. And I watched my Daddy slowly and painfully, die. I watched my best friend in shock over getting the news no one, ever, wants to get and I have marveled at her as she has done the hard work of grief. 

Watching her made me realize how much of my own grief I have tampered down. 

For the first time in six years I realized I can’t get through these struggles without more professional help. The anxiety that manifests as rage, the tensing of my shoulders, the sheer panic I feel knowing I have to leave my house (even when I’m doing things I love), the way I’ve made my lip bleed biting it when I’m angry…it’s not good. 

So I put actions to me saying “I’m trying.”

Trying means I sought actual medical help. Trying means I step away when I get irrational. Trying means I let go of what in”should” do in favor of what I “could” do. Trying means we pick nurturing our kiddos hearts over yelling about things needing to be cleaned. Trying means I say yes to one more chapter and I go to bed when the kids go to bed to make sure I’m getting *as much* adequate sleep as I can. 

Trying means I start taking a medication for anxiety. Trying means talking to a therapist. 

Love means I don’t stay in this place in my mind anymore. It means I get help. 

It means movement.