Mama Said...

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend. - Bruce Lee

 I'm just plain tired.  Work. Mothering.  Worrying about money.  Feeling guilty for working more than I want to work.  Feeling like I'm aiming for shared parenting but still doing the majority of the grunt work and domestic duty. Sleepy.  Unexercised.  Spent.  Writing is just another expenditure of energy that I haven't really been able to afford.  I should be doing 10 really important work and household related things right now.  Even blogging brings me guilt at this point in my life.

Be like water.

I work with clients that have sustained heartbreaking tragedy in their lives.  I see them treading in heartache and frustration.  I see life dole out hardship that wasn't deserved and sometimes cannot be overcome.  I see grief and loss.  Daily.  I try to help them find their way back to a life with which they can make peace without crushing their hopes of having the life that they truly want.  I have a hard time leaving their stories at the door.  It weighs on me.  It moves me.

Be like water.

My girls are growing so.  Their legs are long and constantly jumping. They are always wanting. Needing. Arms outstretched for holding. Begging. "Please!" Little hands always gripping mine, pulling and heaving me where they wish me to go.  Climbing on me, wiggling upon me.  Invading my every moment, even in sleep. 

Be like water.

I mind just long enough to catch myself feeling stretched too thin, then become distracted by their pretend order at the Starbucks counter or their incredible hair.  Both of them have curls resembling fusilli pasta that play in the wind like thick springs dripping softly from their heads.  In their individual ways, they are both intense, with strong spirits, sometimes clashing hard against each other.  Other times, holding snug to their likenesses and stitching themselves tightly with laughter and delight in each other.  Such laughter waters me, replenishes me after a day when everything else has sucked me dry.  I admire my little sprites with their enthusiasm and tightly sprung curls, and I feel too lucky.  Their lives incredibly untouched by tragedy or hardship.  Their hopes, dreams and possibilities uncapped by reality, thus far.

I want to protect them from life that can harden the softest of souls and turn what might have been a springy, little girl into a rigid, resisting woman.  Yet I can't.  I can try, but I am not in control.  All I have is my wish for them within a Bruce Lee quote:  Be like water.

Mama says: do as I say, not as I do.  Save yourselves the battle, my loves, and just be like water.