Something a little different...

Usually I post my Friday Finds today, but this has been on my mind and I've been up since about 4am feeling the need to write it down.

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, technically most of the night. I’ve written and rewritten it at least five times. This January has been quite a month. We started out with our sweet older dog hurting her ACL, followed that up with a car needing to be towed and repaired (and sharing a car for two days), and most recently our furnace has broken three times (in one month). It is really easy for me to get down about silly things like this. It doesn’t help that this January has been bitter cold and we’ve been inside a lot. I start feeling like life is just too overwhelming (I am a huge control freak). Often these feelings lead me to think of my boys who will someday face situations like this (or much worse situations such as health issues or environmental disasters) and I cannot handle the thought of them suffering in any form. It was thoughts like these that contributed to my severe postpartum depression, and it is all too easy for me to head right back to that line of thought.

Yesterday after I dropped T off at school, my dad texted asking to have lunch. He had the day off and wanted to drive down (it’s a two hour drive one way, but that is my dad, and mom – they’d drive four hours total for an hour of seeing us). I called and told him I needed to pick up T at 1 and I was waiting for the repairman to call about our furnace, but as long as he was flexible it sounded great. He arrived, surprised T at pick up (which T LOVED), took us to lunch (T’s second lunch of the day), and wouldn’t leave until he heard if the repairman would make it before the end of the work day (not that I was pushing him to go, he wanted to purchase a few space heaters for us if we weren’t going to have working heat). The repairman came, fixed our heat once again (apparently multiple parts were bad) and I paid the bill. Then I went upstairs to fold laundry and cry. The price of things this month was excessive, and this bill sent me over the edge.  N arrived home from school and was super excited to see Grandpa and Grandpa even offered to take us to dinner (I offered to cook but apparently veggie fried quinoa didn’t sound too appetizing).  At dinner my dad slid some money into my bag. And this is where I truly lost it – all out bawling.

Part of me feels like my parents always come to my rescue. My dad has moved multiple pieces of furniture (and a 200+ lb tv down our stairs just this week), they’ve painted rooms, babysat every time we’ve asked, fixed our dryer, our washer, purchased a new lawn mower (because I ran over the old one with the car), and obviously the list goes on. It's this rescuing part that sometimes feels like I’ve never gained independence or grown. It makes me ashamed.

But last night I realized something. My dad was playing with my boys and I saw things from a parent’s perspective. I do have a lot of fears for my boys, but you know what, I’m going to be there. I’m going to help them. They aren’t facing things on their own, just like I haven’t faced anything alone. My parents always tell me that this is what was done for them, especially when I was little. They received the support they are now able to give. I only hope that I’m as giving and selfless as my parents are, and that my boys see it as love and support and not as them failing (as it took me way too long to realize).