Labor on Earth

People ask me, so now that you're not in school, what do you do with your mornings?

It's a fair question. I do have the hours of 8:30am-12:30 just hanging around town, since William's therapy is just far enough away from home that it's not worth it to make the drive twice. It eats up the whole morning (I have half the time to accomplish things around the house that most stay-at-home moms of school-aged children have), but I do have some solid daily me-time.

So what do I do with it?

Well, I quit school in October. I worked crazy on my column until preparations for Thanksgiving travel hit, then there was Christmas and the many to-do lists and shopping to accomplish. Now it's over, and I have no idea how to answer people when they ask.


I know what I'm not doing, especially today. A while back, I mentioned that I was sad about something I didn't want to discuss on my blog, which isn't typical of me since usually nothing is off-limits. It was May. We suspect that I had a very early miscarriage on Mothers' Day (come ON, right?), and today would have been my due date. Like I said, it's something we suspect. It would have been extremely early, like a few days to a week old when it disappeared, so we have no proof other than the absurdly unusual and violent way in which my body behaved. That was the hardest part for me. I felt in my soul like a person had come and gone from this world without anyone ever noticing, but there was no evidence. I felt if I'd at least had a positive pregnancy test somewhere, I could justify my grief. I just felt emotionally wasted with no tangible reason on which to base it--only a suspicion.

Today I just look at the day and don't know what to do with it. I don't feel sad in the way I thought I would. If there was a person, I do hold that person close in my heart today and am bursting with love for him or her. But most of my actual sadness comes from the fact that, for as long as my husband and I have been together and discussed family, we always wanted a big family. And I want that now more than I ever have. However, William's special needs are a major obstacle, and I don't know if there will be more, at least on purpose. In the meantime, I can feel my fertility slowly waning. I mean, I might have a good ten babymaking years left. But who knows? My body's different than it used to be; I can feel it. And then, when I think of that little person who could have been, I feel a little sad. As sad as I'll let myself be in light of all the tragedies that we know happened. You know?

So, with the dawning of a new year, I aim to work for the family I have. It's what I've been aiming to do all along and was temporarily sidetracked from during a busy season. My goal is to make prayer my work, and my work into prayer. No mother ever prayed too much for her children, and no wife ever prayed too much for her husband. I'm still left with a pretentious answer when people ask what I do (what do I do all morning? Oh, I pray for my family. I'm super religious. Look how God-like I am. What do YOU do with YOUR mornings? Hm?). But whatever. I'll figure out something that's funny to say and people only realize later how mysterious it was. Right?

That leaves writing. What to do with that. What. To do. With that.