I’ve been pretty exhausted lately with work pulling me in too many directions at once. Everyone has had significant stressors over the last year, but it has culminated for me in the last couple days in a way that has pushed me to the extend of my resilience.
It isn’t in my nature to quit. What that implies, though, is more often than not, I have been taking work home.
As I write this my boys are in bed, but I raised my voice at them unnecessarily. I had a short fuse when they were goofing around and snapped.
I don’t feel good about it.
The glibber of hope among it all is that even after I got short, blew up and acted like a jerk, my oldest was talking to me like I needed to listen to his explanation for why he wasn’t listening. His tone was confident, as if he knew I would listen to him and hear his rationale.
I did.
The youngest had flushed the toilet prematurely and it was still running to fill the reservoir back up. The oldest was waiting patiently to flush when it had finished since they had both used it.
He was correct in that his point was valid and it was the right way to rectify the problem.
What lifted my heart was coming to realize that he didn’t panic or grow anxious at my irritability. He trusted that I loved him and would listen. His younger brother smiled at me but did what I had asked.
They both understood that I wasn’t angry at them, but just frustrated. They held no animosity. They just met me where I was and loved me.
This is why it is all worth it. The coughing gag fits. The unstoppable sobbing. The late nights and early mornings when they were infants or when they are sick.
The trust that I saw in their eyes had been earned.
Now it is my job not to lose it.
I will likely require a lot of help from up above, but I’m confident He will do His part, as he evidently has been at work all along.
So I’m going to be finding alternative ways to lower my stress. Probably time to get my roller out, work on my flexibility, and stop letting work follow me home.
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