These Burdens I Love

It's summer and we're right here in the thick of it all.  And with the heat...we feel a little stuck, or at least, sticky.  Lazy days...boring days, if you will, brimming with monotony and squealing. 

Both of Adam's two jobs at Ft. Benning are nearing the end - one turns over in about 6 weeks, the other one in December.  Which means lots of solution-alluding problems, lots of stress, long days, long weekends, loss of appetite and ulcers, the days are too short to get everything done but feel like they'll never end - and that's just how I feel listening to him tell me about his day.  I say the only things I know to say, 'keep looking up!  you'll be great!  you survived the last turnover...I love you.'

Meanwhile I'm mediating squabbles over squinkies and Disney movies, hollering at the dog and ironing, or cleaning or cooking or trying to get a shower or get the girls bathed.  Escaping every night after everyone is settled, tucked in and sleeping, into a book - pools and books, my two greatest joys of the summer. I'll never give up the summer reading tradition...

While stirring my sacred cup of afternoon coffee I realized, once and for all, that I love the things that chafe. 

"The things that fill me with stress so total I can't remember when a block of it didn't rest on top of my heart.  I love what, if broken, can't be repaired.  What, if lost, can't be replaced.  I love my burdens." 
- Dennis Lehane (whom if you haven't read his books, you are seriously missing out.)

I am a less-than perfect woman who is in love with a less-than perfect man and we created two beautiful daughters who, we fear sometimes, may never stop talking, or squealing, or go to bed.

This husband of mine and I have built a sublimely beautiful life.  I love every aspect of it, I'm in love with these burdens.  I want things to stay exactly this way. 

To which Adam is reading and now choking, I imagine.  He's really ready for these jobs to turnover.  But Adam, your burden has afforded us this amazing life...this life, that I don't ever want to change.