Feeling lucky (punk)

My knees are still causing me considerable pain, i had to wait until 3pm yesterday for them to have eased enough for me to drive to the supermarket.  This is not good.  Some kind and knowledgeable people have informed me via text message and Facebook of some things i can try to prevent this becoming a long-term/recurring problem for me, all of which i'll be trying as hobbling around the house like a pensioner is about as much fun as one might imagine. Especially given i've had no special dispensation of my regular zookeeping, sorry, i mean, mothering duties.

I should be running again tomorrow but obviously won't be doing any such thing.  Unless the zombie apocalypse happens in which case, i'll be (un)dead before you know it.  I am contemplating a swim over the weekend though.  The boys have their class on Saturday morning anyway but that's a workout for them not me, unless you count wrestling them in to their wetsuits, which come to think of it, probably does raise my heart rate enough to be considered a cardiovascular workout.  In all seriousness though, i mean, an actual swim,  as i want to keep the momentum going with my training even if my knees aren't playing along.  It's quite disheartening actually, having hit a hurdle so early but perhaps it's a good thing as it gives me chance to correct the problem with plenty of time before the race?...

Anyway i realise my last couple of entries have been very "woe is me" what with the housework and the knee pain and the cold virus and all and it's a shame because that's not a true reflection of how i've been feeling lately.  So i wanted to tell you about something that happened to me on Saturday.

I worked Friday night, against my better judgement, i really was close to calling in sick but decided that the repercussions of that would have been worse than the actual lived experience of working whilst feeling so pap, so off i went.  It was an ok shift actually, the unit is pretty quiet at the minute, so i had enough to do to keep me from falling asleep stood up but not so much that physical collapse threatened.

I came home on Saturday morning, and let me tell you, working weekend nights, for all it's suckiness, actually has some awesome benefits, such as for example, unsocial hours pay, but more importantly, clear roads on your way home.  It really is sublime.

So i was home early and the guys were all still upstairs.  Not upstairs as in, asleep in their beds.  Haha.  That would be funny.  No, our children rise about three hours before the sun itself.  But they were all in our bedroom still in their pjs, so i changed into my own pyjamas and climbed into bed with them.  Toby and Rudy were doing the usual, running up and down the hall, dragging all the toys from their bedrooms into ours, scattering them about and then disappearing for more, repeat ad infinitum.  They were being cute and funny with it though.  I mean, they're always cute and funny, the humour is just well disguised sometimes ;)

Chris was in a good mood because he'd had a reasonable sleep (reasonable for a parent of two small children i mean, not by normal human terms) so we were chatting, and i even got brought a bowl of ready-brek and a cup of tea in bed.  I looked around and i had the strangest and most overwhelming feeling of absolute contentment.  Nothing about the morning was "Perfect".  I felt like shit, what with the cold and having been awake for over 24 hours, i looked like shit (see above), the room (hell, the house) was is a total tip, Rudy kept head-butting me in his 15 month old attempts at snuggles, there was even a bit of bickering between the boys i think.  But it was absolutely perfect in it's imperfection.  I just felt so lucky.

That doesn't happen to me very often.  Don't get me wrong, i know, in my mind that i am incredibly fortunate.  But knowing, and feeling are very different.  I know i'm lucky but i don't always feel that i am. Sometimes i just get swept up in making things happen, or bogged down in the mundane, it's hard to be still AND be present, and to really open your tired and scratchy eyeballs and see how amazing your life is right here and now...

but on Saturday, without even trying, without planning, or a camera or anything at all, it just happened.  I was there and it was lovely, and i felt it, and took a minute to acknowledge and share it with people through Facebook.

And then i ate my ready brek and drank my tea, the boys all went downstairs for breakfast, i pinned a few things on Pinterest (my latest "obsession" as Chris refers to it) and then i went to sleep.  And the day moved on, and i got up and things went on as normal and i wasn't exactly floating on a blissful cloud all afternoon but i did have a lingering feeling of something for the rest of the day.  If only we could bottle that lovely something and take a sniff on the crappiest of days when no matter how lucky your brain tells you you are, your heart just won't feel it.  Now wouldn't that be something?