fine

It happened last Monday.

I woke up, and I was fine.

Pardon the drama, but I haven't been myself since my uterus went on a Magical Mystery Tour in May of 2005. It took a detour with a second beautiful baby, and between nursing hormones, back pain and a complete life and career adjustment, it seems to be settled back nicely in the two-car garage next to the badminton set and the beach chairs. Fine.

For some of you who read this, you could be nodding your head. Or maybe even more spiritedly saying, 'Girl....mmmm.' Who knows. Some of you don't know what I'm talking about yet, and either you will in the (very) near future, or you won't. But I know what I know and I am starting to see clearly now. I feel like a hothouse flower opening up after a really long drought and thank goodness. I was starting to be....not fine.

Years, literally, of not sleeping had started to take it's toll. I was in auto-pilot and although appreciative of my blessings (trite, but whatever!), I was in a fog. Half-mast, 50%, walking through the sludge of the day. Needing caffeine. Needing chocolate. Needing sleep. Needing that 10 minutes of pelting hot water in the shower with no interruptions and no one asking me where a bottle was. If I didn't get those basic needs met, I was on the verge of tears. Verge of a fight. Verge of yelling at my 23 month old because clearly she didn't appreciate that her spoon with peanut butter remnants CANNOT be near her sister. Didn't she understand that?

SO. I woke up with the babies. I wasn't mad about not getting 10 (friggin'!) minutes to myself. I was okay with the morning poopy diapers and the big one screaming so much that the little one started to bawl. It was no big deal that I was going potty with an audience. Formula bottle dripping...whatever! It was all good. All okay.

I celebrated my newfound fine-ness (holler!) with a delicious meal that I actually PLANNED before 4:55pm when I usually hear my husband's train whistle and think, 'Oh shit! Is anything thawed out?'. It was a broccoli salad, by the way, with roasted herbed potato-fries and a vegetable-bacon frittata. It wasn't haute-cuisine, but it was good. Really fine, actually.