When You Don't Want to Show Up

Day 41: Today started early with screams from Finley's room around 12:30 am. Followed by several visits from Elliott because he was having bad dreams.  At one point there were four of us in our queen size bed, and I somehow ended up with no pillow and only enough room to lay on my side, smooshed between both Finley and Elliott. Everybody was hot and sweaty and my thick cozy blanket was no longer welcome, but it was physically impossible for me to move it. My drab mood from the night before was being intensified instead of renewed with the dawning of a new day. I was tired.  My body was tired. My heart was tired. My mind was tired. Every last part of me was and is tired.  It has been 41 days of trying to show up.  And today, I just didn't want to show up.  Showing up sucks.  I long to open my eyes to a day where Steve is getting ready for work, and I can be thrilled with how much food my healthy kids are eating instead of wondering what we will do in exactly three weeks and six days when Steve's severance is up. Today it would have been easier to just stay in bed and drown my sorrows until Steve left for his upteenth meeting with a connection who may have a lead to a possible connection somewhere.  But although easier, I knew it wasn't part of the deal.  I knew I need to show up.  It wasn't pretty, but my feet did hit the floor, and I was greeted by Finley saying, Moning Mama.   Gibson didn't care that I was a disheveled mess of bed head and night sweats, but only wondered if he could look at Google Earth with me. Elliott was finally finding sleep that was so elusive from the hours before.  I showed up, and it mattered.  And I have to continue to choose to show up today, because today is just one of those days, when showing up is the hardest thing to do.