Wake UP!

So, Anna and I are in a sort of mid-life crisis. Maybe you could call it a 5 year wake up call. Anders is almost five now and we are hobbling along. Really, hobbling.
You'd think from the photo's that it's been smooth sailing, but I am here to say it distinctly and with no doubt- we are hobbling.

Parenting is hard work.
Working full time with two young children is really hard work.
Doing the laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, making a meal, changing a diaper, feels like an endless circle game.
Trying to respond appropriately to a whiny child, an obstinate child, a non-listening child feels difficult at best.
Figuring out how to have a life that holds magic is impossible these days.

I recently attended the memorial service of a very old friend, my best friends' mother in fact, and I had my first wake up call. At the memorial, her husband of 40 years read love poems he had written for her over the course of their marriage. The poems were stunningly beautiful. The poems were heartbreaking. I wept. Their love was brilliant but human; full of hardship but also magic.

It made me think about my life. The life I lead right now that is void of magic.

I feel as if I am living in the trenches...no time for magic, no time for love.
It feels like it is killing me.
I moved to Vermont specifically for big love.
And here I am nearly 15 years later finding myself struggling for air. It's weird, because I have exactly what I have ever wanted....2 beautiful children, a great partner, a home, a good career and yet I feel lost. Why?

I think an internal eye of mine started looking around for something deeper.
Maybe even role models.
Parents who have a family and have managed to keep the magic intact.
Hardship and magic together...married. Not just hardship.

I found a few other mom blogs that I guess I have used as an arrow.
I can't really even say that.
It's more that when I read some of them it touches the part of me that feels, that knows something, that can identify magic and poetry. And it feels like it is beginning to loosen up a part of me that feels so terribly stuck.

That is where I heard WAKE up for the second time. I reached out for help. The blog This and That www.vickihoefle.wordpress.com had a posting on October 27 that was amazing. It was as beautiful as Al's love poems to his wife were, except this was a letter to a daughter.
Vicki told me - Wake up!
Pay attention. Practice being in the moment. Every day....every single day.
Thank God.

I have had a hard time admitting that I am really struggling. I think I feel ashamed, embarrassed and certainly ungrateful. Maybe it's that I am just too damn proud. But really, I need some good help. So anyone who can send me a wake up call is welcome. Feel free to bring it on!