showing up

Ah. The flu has come to test my resolve. I heard most new year’s resolutions don’t make it past 6 months (I would have thought 1), but it seems I am being tested just after the first week.

Yesterday I started feeling a bit ill during the day and by evening I was huddled up in bed with a fever. Not helped by a night in which both V and I were up with our daughter from 4 to 5 a.m., I’ve spent the day in the fog of what seems to be some sort of stomach flu. It’s the kind of day when you’d really like to just stay in bed, dozing and reading, nibbling on crackers and drinking tea.

But these are not options one has when looking after a toddler. Even if I slump on the couch, Miya will start saying ‘wake-up! wake-up!’ and pull at my hands.

At least she ended up sleeping in a little, which meant we missed her first gymnastics class of the year. (I wasn’t quite sure I was up for it anyway.) We did make it to the seniors though (‘deniors’ my daughter calls them since she has trouble with words beginning in S). Every Friday we spend about an hour visiting with seniors with advanced dementia in a long-term care facility. It is pretty easy gig as far as volunteering goes, since all they ask is that we are there and that the seniors can watch Miya playing. That’s about all I can say for what I accomplished today – I showed up.

That’s the way it is. Some days we rise above. Some days we simply show up. Funny how just showing up sometimes takes as much effort as those days when we scale to the top.

And so, on this 7th blog of the year, I have simply shown up. I have made my 365 word count without writing much of value, creativity or interest – not to say that my other blogs are so fantastic, but at least I try to put a little thought into them. My apologies to anyone reading this. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going back to bed.