"real life"

i was driving down the road the other day after having dropped off two sets of kids only to return a couple hours later to pick up said kids thinking holy hell i am a serious taxi driver at the moment... my mind then wandered back to this day in the hospital...my friend was sitting beside me, this friend is the friend...you know the one that is always there. silent and f ing strong even though she may not be on the inside.  her name is morgan and i am willing to bet she has stayed with me at the hospital every. single. solitary. time that paxton has.  it started off a bit rocky when the sight of him at one week old post open heart surgery had her woozy, but from then on she was never not there for that boy or me for that matter.... anyway on one of the many stays i was crying to her that " i just want to get back to real life." she looked at me in her calm, quiet way and said "jen, this is real life..."

i will never forget those words, because what i hadn't stopped to realize is she was right, i was living real life.  sometimes real life involves being a taxi driver 5 days a week and others it involves standing vigil by your sons side in the hospital, but one or the other doesn't have more "real life" to it and if there had to be one that did, lets be honest, it would be the latter. it took me awhile to realize that real life isn't a place to be or get to.  "real life" is wherever you are in the present moment.  what i needed to learn was to BE in the present moment.  this is a work in progress, maybe it is for all of us, but i have to reign myself in and just beeee. not think about tomorrow or next week or when paxtons heart will fail or worry that i will be alive long enough to see my boys grow up, but rather just be...here...now.

 it's not easy, of this i know. i am worrier by nature and if i have learned anything from paxtons journey it's that i don't control shit.  i can live under the illusion that i can control things, but it is just that...an illusion and the control freak in me will never win. my house is spotless because that i can control, but beyond that i am screwed... i remind myself daily, sometimes hourly, that i can enjoy today or waste it worrying about tomorrow.  in truth, i waste a lot of time worrying about tomorrow, but i am not perfect and i am learning and trying and growing and isn't that all one can ask of themselves. so while "real life" might be a lot of different things to different people i think i have figured out what mine is...  and i have figured out that my real life isn't the life i asked for sometimes, but it's mine and if i allow myself to be present in it, i can choose to grow from it... just like paxton being sick wasn't the real life i envisioned, but it is very real and it too, is mine and once i learned to be present in it.... i learned paxton being sick was one hell of a blessing in disguise.

...his concentration slays me...

*********************

this time of year gets people all hot and bothered and that pisses me off because aren't the holidays supposed to rally folks together.  come on people...don't make me run the streets on my goddamn soap box.  and trust me i have SO done it...this one time...at publix... it was just after paxton and i had returned from an all to long hospital stay... and my big mouth couldn't stay shut one more iota of a second...lets just say she will never complain in the deli line again... honestly the deli...when "real life" is happening...

and its happening for each and every one of us if we allow ourselves to honor it...

...thank you morgs, ten years my junior, for teaching me the most valuable lesson of all on this journey, "jen, this is real life"

i love you, nugget loves you.



and here's where i say peace out, see you on the flip side, holla atcha, deuces...nyquil calls my name... and yes i still take it to sleep...don't judge me...it's all i medicate myself with...that and champagne...lots and lots of champagne ; )

~night all from west siiiide


ps~

only in florida on 12/9 will you see this....




Comments

Anonymous said…
love this post and needed to read this this morning! Love seeing you and your precious boys every week! holla, ErinAbougzir
December 10, 2012 at 8:24 AM
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