That Vivid Emotion of Pleasure

Lately I have had a lot of moments where I feel overwhelmed with just how much there is to do when you're raising a family and working to support them; paralyzing moments where there are honestly so many things that need to be done right now that I don't know where to start.

Take Tuesday afternoon, for instance.  All of a sudden a lot was going on, all at once.  I had work I needed to finish while the baby slept, but my son called from school to say he had vomited all over the bathroom floor so could I come and pick him up, which required an immediate text and phone call to the piano teacher who needed to know that she shouldn't expect us later on.  I wondered whether I should wake the baby who still had a good hour's worth of napping to do and thought about who I could ask to watch him while I nipped out.  But then I remembered I didn't have the car that day and so there would be no nipping out anywhere.  At the same time I was thinking about what to make for supper that would be quick and easy and would allow me to get out the door at 6:30pm to be on time for that night's board meeting while simultaneously plotting when I might find time to give the house a good vacuum as the night before the kids had watched a spider literally eat a fly from it's web on our living room windowsill.

Everyday life at work and at home brings with it so many competing needs: the house needs cleaning, the dinner needs cooking, the children need fetching, the cub badges need sewing, the piano needs practicing, the baby needs nursing, the work needs doing.  And it's all equally important and it all needs to be done, and done NOW. 

This past weekend we tried to put on hold all the things that needed doing to go out to dinner as a family, try to enjoy life a little.  We got a table but the baby wouldn't sit down.  He'd arch his back and scream when we'd try to put him in the high chair; instead he just wanted to run around, pulling napkins and cutlery off the nicely-laid tables and going right up to other customers and patting their legs and looking up at them as they tried to enjoy a quiet meal.  We ordered our food and then my husband took him out of the restaurant while I ate and once I'd finished I went out and took over with baby so my husband could go in and eat his meal.  Oh joy, I said to myself, sarcastically.

Out in the lobby baby amused himself with the restaurant's automatic doors, pushing the big silver button to open the inner door to the lobby and then running to the outer door and pushing the adjacent button and stepping outside as the double doors opened, turning around to wave at me from the sidewalk.  Then he'd run back in and do it all again.

Doing what needs to be done when it needs doing is hard.  It's hard to rise to whatever occasion is before us, mainly because we think that there is much we could be doing besides tending to a never-ending list of needs.  We could be traveling or reading or shopping or exercising or vegging out.  We could be alone.

From where I stood on the sidewalk I could see in the windows of the restaurant.  I could see my husband and the kids sitting together, smiling and laughing.  I could see the baby's reflection, hear him squeal and giggle as he ran from door to door.  I should have felt frustrated that I wasn't sitting with the rest of my family, enjoying a rare evening out.  I could have felt angry, that I was standing outside, having to look after someone.  I could have felt regret, resentment, irritation and a sense of being hard done by.  But when I paid attention to how I was feeling, I was surprised to discover that in that moment, what I was actually feeling was pretty good.  It comes as a surprise that hard isn't necessarily bad.  It comes as a surprise that hard can be good. 

Marianne Williamson said, "joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are."  By most of the world's standards I have it pretty easy, but still those moments do come when I feel that meeting the demands of the day require more than I have in me.  I suppose that's where joy creeps in, in the visceral feeling that small and daily challenges have a hand in shaping me, in refining me, in making me into more than what I currently am.

I had to admit it was actually kind of fun, watching the baby push the buttons and open the door for people and giggle and squirm as I tried to catch him and bring him inside.  The other customers in the restaurant enjoyed watching the spectacle of our family.  "Boy you're working hard," a woman said to me as she left the restaurant that evening.  I couldn't help but wonder if instead all the hard work was simply working on me.