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I graduated in April. It felt glorious for about three days and then I had two of the least productive weeks of my entire life. And depressing. It was a rather nasty cycle because I truly could not figure out what was going on. I was done and should be happy. I had a little time to be a mom and that should be even happier. But I sat and looked at my house that seemed to be barely holding together at the seams and didn't know where to start. I was happy my laptop was sitting unused in its bag, but at the same time, I had an insatiable urge to pull it out and start researching something, outlining something, writing something. I should have slept well, but nights were interrupted with miniature panic attacks--I was sure I had forgotten to do something. But the missed task always eluded me.

Now I am working as a clerk for a firm, working to help a professor rewrite his casebook, and struggling to prepare for the bar (wow is that ever going to be miserable) and suddenly all is right with the world again. I am making bowls of cereal for dinner and the kids are missing homework assignments but I feel much better. Are you catching the problem here? I have been conditioned to not enjoy life unless it is too overwhelming, too much to get done. Where has my ability to enjoy gone, I wonder? How was it so quickly replaced with the ball of nerves that has taken its place. Maybe it is just my anxiety over still not having a job. That's possible. Because we have five little girls to feed and clothe and a house payment. And in a few short months I will have a good-sized loan payment to make. So, I am working on relaxing, breathing, and trusting God that He will show a way. And trying (unsuccessfully) to be patient.

This is part of my self-imposed therapy. I will write my blog again. I will record the things that my girls are doing and saying before it all disappears and I have nothing left but home movies that are almost too painful to watch.

Warning: I've done this with journals--made a quasi commitment--and it never really has worked. We will see...

To everything . . .

Here are some changes I've noticed lately. I am not sure how I feel about any or all of them.

1. I have changed my address. That was a biggie and has wrecked absolute havoc in our lives. For now. I think this one is good. Right now is it just overwhelming and hard.

2. My daughters are changing--a lot--and really fast. Maren is taller than I am and Hollis is close on her heels. They are musicians and swimmers and readers and writers. It is all great, but just doesn't seem right. I live in the moment, but why does it seem like Maren should still be a three foot tall tow-headed toddler with a ready giggle and sparkling blue eyes? I can't even go further there because it is too too painful. Almost unbearable.

3. I changed my mind about locks of hair. I never kept them when the older kids got hair cuts--I mean it seemed pretty dumb. Who wants old pieces of hair all over the place--yuck. But Maeve just got her first haircut (yep--over three years and no haircut). The gal said, "Do you want to keep some?" I looked at her quizzically and said, "No. . . Yes. Yes I do, please." I then got sick to my stomach as she was cutting Maeve's hair and couldn't watch. What was up with that? Sick to my stomach?! It is a haircut for crying in a bucket!

4. I changed my mind about professional painters. They are AWESOME. Painting, much like lawyering, is something you just shouldn't do on your own. Hire the professionals and let them do the work for you. Wowee.

Then there are things that my fickle mind just cannot sort out, no matter how hard it tries.

1. What shall I do about potty-training my three-year-old? I don't really know. I know the others eventually were potty-trained (some more quickly than others) but I can't quite seem to figure out how. And part of me doesn't care. (Yikes.) Because, though the diaper thing is gross, she is my baby. I can't have haircuts and say farewell forever to diapers all in the same week. Come on. That is asking too much.

2. What shall I do about graduating in April? That means I have to figure out a job and I am at a complete (almost) loss. I know, it seems that lawyering would be the thing to do, but you haven't tried lawyering. You don't know the misery that is the work of first year associates. I have had two summers of it and hated almost every minute. What I want is something that lets me be a mom again. I mean I am a mom, but not the same mom I was two years ago--see there's that change thing again.

3. I have a birthday coming up this week and I honest to goodness cannot ever remember how old I am. Honest. It takes me subtracting my birth year from 2010 to get it figured out. I think I'm 36, then I get confused and I'm just 35, or is it 37 because I'm suddenly too old for more babies or am I already creeping up on 38? I'm pretty sure it ain't 34--been there and done that . . . I think . . .

Average Perfection

My daughter is failing Algebra.
Ok, ok. She isn't getting an A.
In fact, her three quarters of As are turning to a C.
But I'm a law student and to me that is failing.
What sick and wrong thing has happened in my little brain to make that the case, I'm not entirely sure. But if she doesn't get it in gear, she can't take Geometry in 8th grade and then take the ACT in 9th grade.
See what I mean? A little sick.

To add to the sickness, I do have an excuse for her. She is bored to tears and just doesn't like to do her homework. But she is smart. Oh boy, is she ever smart. 100% on her quizzes and tests. 100%, baby.

I had a law school acquaintance tell me once that he is not competitive. He would never wish for anyone to do badly. He just really hopes he does better than everyone else. Hmmm.

I think we are in a difficult era for more reasons that just pornography and the internet. We are in the most competitive era ever. It makes me pause to wonder what then happens to charity. What then happens to compassion.

Around the block is the stay-at-home mom with her award winning home business or her award-winning blog or her blog being turned into a book or five kids who are all already accepted into Harvard.

Down the street is the mom with degrees from Stanford and Yale. She works just 10 hours a week, makes a fabulous income, and serves up homemade cookies with organic milk when her kids get home from school.

We look at each other and compare and criticize and compete.

I wonder when we stopped sharing our sorrows as well as our joys.

I wonder when we stopped sharing our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

In wonder when we stopped sharing our humanity as well as our celestiality.

The up-and-comers seem to have it extra hard. Education. Motherhood. Career. Uniquely and beatifully decorated home. Beautifully decorated children. Cleanliness, orderliness, perfection.

Perfection that we know is unattainable, yet we are so willing to believe that it exists in almost every life but our own. Something must not be right with us because no one else seems to have the challenges and weaknesses we do.

Perhaps some look for the gaps. But the gaps hardly ever show. In other people, that is. I see my gaps clearly and gaping all around me. The gap betwen the temple and my lived-in home. The gap between the mother I want to be and the mother I am. The gap between what I want to do and what I am supposed to do.

We have no permission to be average. Even people who read this and think, "Oh, I am average, boy am I average" either don't show it or really are not average. Probably the latter. Ever noticed how easy it is to see the divinity in others? Besides, average isn't acceptable, is it? We covet the top spots in the class. We persist in pursuing a dream we aren't even sure we want. And in the process we miss the real moments. The laboratory moments that show our humanity and perfect our eternity.

We are truly in an era when all the world is a stage and the men and women are all striving desperately to be players-unique players, strong players, beautiful players, talented player.

Anything but an average player.

Here's to being more average. And being willing to let the gaps show.

Endurance

I am running out of it.

I stayed home with sick kids last Thursday and today and I pretended I was a mom and not a law student.

It was delightful.

We did laundry.

We cleaned the house.

We did dishes.

We mopped the floor.

We vacuumed.

We got the garden ready to plant.

I ignored the homework sitting and staring at me in the corner of the room.

It was a mini vacation.

I loved it.

My children's book

I have a children's book that I have written.

But it isn't published.

I need an artist.

I need a publisher.

I need an agent.

I need a lawyer.

Will someone who knows tell me what to do?

Because it is a good book.

Not that I'm prejudiced or anything.

I can't taste anything . . .

We're sick at my house. Dean has pneumonia and I have something nasty. I was fighting through it until my fever soared and my cough was so bad it was giving me stomach cramps. So, I had to stay home from my second day at Holland and Hart and try to do some work.

And an interesting thing happened.

I couldn't taste anything.

Nothing.

Nada.

I can feel texture, I can tell is something is bitter or sweet or salty.

But I can't taste.

Eating has been very unenjoyable today. I had an orange at breakfast--it was totally gross. Really. I could barely stomach it.

Everyone else raved about how sweet and delicious they were.

I ate a piece of fudge Hollis made.

It felt rich and creamy.

It was so sweet it practically burned my sweet receptors on my tongue.

But I could not taste anything. Nothing.

Tonight I made sweet and sour sauce for some pork my mom had cooked. I couldn't smell while I was cooking, but the vinegar still made my eyes water. That was a challenge--I didn't realized how much I rely on my sniffer to cook.

Then I couldn't taste a thing. All that effort for yummy sweet and sour and I couldn't enjoy it.

So, I've been hungry today, but I almost don't want to eat because it is practically a chore. I need food to live, but, golly, it was no fun.

I realized while I was shivering in my bed, waiting for meds to lower my fever, and trying to go to sleep that Dean and the girls are the flavor in my life. They make the things I need to do something I actually enjoy doing.

The sky is falling

Last night I dreamed that it was the second coming.

I've had these dreams before. Usually there is war and hunger and often an apple in the dream. Strange that it is always an apple. Perhaps my subconscious is linking the beginning of mortality with the end of it. I digress . . .

This time it was calm. There was a sort of tear (as in rip, not water falling from the eyes) in the sky and a temple was slowly descending out of the sky. No one was quite sure what was going on. There was speculation that it was it a Hollywood special effect stunt.

Then, my mother in law came floating down from heaven on a block of ice. (No, she is not dead in real life.) She had an extra block of ice and wanted Hollis to float back up with her to heaven. Hollis insisted that she did not want to die, but mother-in-law assured us that dying was unnecessary.

I asked if this was indeed the second coming. Mother-in-law assured me it was.

I asked if Hollis would be twinkled. Mother-in-law assured me she would not.

Apparently Hollis was a child who would be raised in the millennium. Mother-in-law just wanted Hollis to see the marvelous goings on in celestial realms.

Of course I let her go.

I felt such astonishment and joy to know that I was alive and the second coming was happening. This was in stark contrast to previous second coming dreams where I have felt varying levels of panic, fear, and worry.

Where I am in a war zone fighting to find my children and my husband.

Where I am scrounging for food because our year supply isn't even a week supply.

(That's usually where the apple enters. There's only one. It might be partially rotten. Not sufficient to feed my seven-member family.)

No, this time I was perfectly calm. And joyous. Extremely joyous.

I did the only thing I thought I could do and I went to the temple. One that was already on the ground. My mom came along.

We watched as the heaven temple slowly lowered to a resting spot on the ground. Mom was disappointed because it landed on some flowers that she liked.

We entered the temple and Peter Jennings was at the recommend desk.

I whispered, "Do you know what is going on outside? It is the second coming."

Peter Jennings answered, "Yes, we are following it very carefully. Enjoy your time in the temple Sister Belnap."

And so I went to change.

I woke up with a profound feeling of peace. And excitement. And expectation.

Lovely.