Hills

It is my last weekday at home.

I have had my days confused this week, thinking Thursday was Wednesday, waking up to this Friday morning, wanting it to so desperately be Tuesday... I think the calendar thought about changing for me.  Just out of pity.

My house was full last night.  In the middle of the night I got up to feed Judah and I heard the TV blaring in the living room.  I walked into the living room to find Olivia and Abby sprawled out on the floor under blankets and on body pillows.  TV on, candles still lit, coffee pot still on,  door unlocked.  I laughed quietly to myself, turned down the television, blew out the candles, locked the deadbolt, unplugged the coffee pot, and went back to bed.

This morning, Larry showed up with breakfast.  Got to cuddle Judah before his day started.  I hope he felt the same magic Liv does in the morning time.  A sweet, little, sleepy boy fixes so many things.

I keep having to do hard things.  I keep having to run smack into myself, address the shit and then acknowledge my multitude of shortcomings.  I keep having to take a deep breath -- the kind of breath that envelops and pulls up underneath the hurt and pushes it out.  My mantra used to be "don't freak out".  It continues to be along the same vein, but I find myself closing my eyes and breathing a deeper breath and whispering, "this is not harder than anything before".

Which is usually a lie.

But I believe it, when I breathe it deep enough.

It does keep getting harder.  Like a deceptively steep hill.  Gradual, until you're panting and sweaty and you look behind you, looking downhill at all the way you've come.

I am at the top of a hill, stacked on another hill, stacked on another hill, facing what looks like a mountain.  He says, "keep your head down, put one foot in front of the other".  But this mountainous hill looks slightly more difficult to me now that I'm carrying someone.  I am more concerned with falling than I ever have been.  I am not just responsible for myself.

I have to get both of us to the top.

I look at him as he sleeps beside me, dreaming and smiling and all wrapped up and warm.  My heart hurts with all the love I have for him.  Three weeks and I can't remember my life without him.  I feel like who I was before him, before the pregnancy, didn't ever even exist fully.  My body won't ever look like that again.  My heart's capacity has multiplied.  My skin is thick and tough and the battle scars I bear from this year alone have transformed me.

I don't want to go back to work on Monday.

And I don't want to get the phone call on Wednesday... because I don't know honestly what I am more afraid of.  Like how I avoid checking my mailbox, I just don't know that I want to know.  Maybe it would just be easier if I didn't...

If I just shut the door, dead bolt it against the options, the chance, and said "we will choose our own way, you and me.  Just us, we will go on."

And I know we will, go on I mean.  Every time I hold him and he stares up at me with those blue turned brown eyes and wrinkles his forehead, my heart swells to bursting.  I think of a conversation we will one day have.  About our story -- mine and his.  And I think by then, by the time he thinks to ask, the only thing I will remember is that he taught me how to love.

How to look at someone and see.  How to sacrifice.  How God used him to humble and reconstruct me.  My Nehemiah, my builder.  My Samuel, the one I asked for.  My Judah, my lion.  By then, that's all I'll remember about the hills called mountains.