Sometimes it’s just easier staying busy doing physical work than to sit down at my computer and put my thoughts into words.
Like, right now. I could go back downstairs and peel the apples that are sitting in the sink, start a couple of loaves of bread dough in the bread machines or make another batch of homemade salsa. But I’m not going to. Not until I scribble some thoughts onto paper; or, more accurately, punch the words from my keyboard onto the screen.
Formatting thoughts and feelings into words is how I process things. And here’s what’s churning currently in my little world.
Daughter No. 1 is getting more mail than the rest of us combined, if you don’t factor in the bills. Emma is a high school senior. Next year, poof, gone. Gone to a yet-to-be-determined college.
This year, lots of colleges want her. Or so they say in their marketing material. What’s she thinking? She knows where she doesn’t want to go. “The one” hasn’t been found yet, but we’re scoping out a few options.
Whenever I see a monarch butterfly (something I started watching for on my bike rides this summer), I say a little prayer that God will guide Emma to where he wants her to be next year and help her discern if becoming an elementary education teacher, like she’s been planning since kindergarten practically, is the calling for her.
Daughter No. 2, Justine, is in her first year of high school and is testing the waters — literally, as a member of the swim team, and figuratively as she navigated her first homecoming dinner and dance last weekend.
The one and only son has entered those trying middle school years at a new school, and after a little rocky start seems to be doing OK. Luke’s idea of a good time is hanging with his boy cousins (remember, he’s a little outnumbered at our house with three sisters). But, as far as I can tell, he’s made some new friends, doesn’t mind the long bus ride to and from St. John’s Prep and has only totally bombed one test so far (the one I should have caught on “Schoology” but I’ve decided not to micro-manage his studies).
Daughter No. 3, Miranda, is all about fun. This will be the third Friday in a row for her to attend a birthday party of one of her classmates. Heck, she’s even convinced me to have her 10-year birthday party at the half-way point since her official day falls in the summer and it’s just “way better to have it during the school year when we’re all together, Mom.”
So, my life? My life is about keeping those four lives moving in a forward direction. About keeping everyone happy, fed, clothed and getting to where they need to be.
Sometimes I think I need to get “a real job” again. And then I think, how? How would I do that? Besides, isn’t this a “real” job? The pay stinks but the rewards are pretty great, especially when I get an unsolicited “Thanks Mom” and a “You’re the best.”
Rita Meyer is married and the mother of four children age 17 and under. She and her family are members of St. John the Baptist Parish in Meire Grove. Email her at ritameyer@meltel.net.