Dancing in the rain

This morning, was gray, quiet, and rainy.  Matt and I got up earlier to do yoga together.  It ended sooner than expected with us slow dancing together in the loft.  :)  The rain falling outside reminded me of the night we got engaged.  It was raining, and I remember lying on the grass together, looking up at the stars through the breaks in the clouds, talking about our future.

That future is one neither of us could have imagined, but which has included the high points, like dancing in the morning together, and the low points, like coming downstairs afterward to crying children and a massive mess that you wonder why you didn’t clean up last night (oh yeah, you were exhausted...). 

A line from a song this morning keeps playing over and over in my mind.  Something about being so afraid to die that we never lived.  I’m not afraid of death at all, but maybe of the hard things.  There are those moments, when you’re trying to listen to three very persistent girls at once, and you are potty training another that wants to do nothing but pee on the floor and cry, and a new baby is colicky and needs to be heard.  Those moments when there is so much mess from making a cake together, then eating it, the night before, that you can’t imagine how you’ll take care of everything and clean it up.  And when you wonder why bother cleaning it or potty training or even taking a shower, because it will all get messy again.  And then you become overwhelmed by schooling your children and all of the better things you want to do with them, but the mundane math problems take so much time.  Those moments, when you’d rather stay in the little hole, the little rut you are currently in. 

And the tears start and I close my eyes. 

Sigh.

But then, I remember dancing in the morning.  I remember lying on the grass in the rain.  And I open my eyes, and see a husband who is very late to work, but who is nevertheless holding a baby while pouring cereal for the girls, and I see my oldest sweeping up cake crumbs without being asked.  I sit down to breakfast and try to keep breathing, and then my three year old asks if I’ll read to them. 

And somehow, seeing how others love me, even in my imperfections, and taking that one step to read, just one step, makes all the difference.  And we live again. 

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