Some days, you blink, and look around, and things are good.
Really, really good.
And it's as if you're surfacing from a dream, where all the edges are just a little hazy...just a little unstable. And you're not sure when you woke up. You can't quite pinpoint when that clarity hit, just that it's there.
My life right now? It's that soft edge of waking.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
I remember when the kids were young... three under the age of four... and every deep breath I took hurt. Every moment my eyes were open was a struggle. But I remember it abstractly, as if I read it in a book and can recall it in muddied images. And I look back almost fondly now at those years; and wish I could remember with more clarity how my children looked, when they sweetly rubbed the sleep from their eyes, told me they loved me in the soft lisp of a two-year-old. But I know that it's just my body's self-defense mechanisms kicking in, protecting me from the sharp edges those memories also carry.
And I don't want this year to be like that.
Years with extremes tend to be just that: Extreme.
And this year has been amazing. We've managed to compact years of joy and tears and firsts into just a few short months. And I am already afraid that ten years from now, I'll look back at this year with the soft edge of memory, forsaking all those brilliant sharp edges that made it worth remembering.
Those sharp edges? They give clarity. They extend meaning beyond the soft blur. They're the good stuff. Hell, sometimes they're the best stuff.
