Coming Up For Air

I almost can’t believe it’s been two months since my last post.  Almost.  But between the last post and these few words at midnight, before winding the mind down and after a decent bit of yoga, much has occurred.  Two months have passed in the blink of an eye, and during that time I completely recalibrated my priorities.

The dedicated throngs of Weissology faithful from Alaska all the way to Indonesia will dutifully recall that it was only just in the middle of last summer when I previously recalibrated my priorities as a result of the Text Message of Doom.

That was then; this is now.  That was me; this is Mrs. Weissology.

Three weeks after my previous post of 11/11/12, the better half went in for some surgery.  Fear mixed with brain-freezing fatigue.  Necessary preventive procedure.  Utterly life-changing.  That's a different blog.  I'm not sure I've fully wrapped my mind around that, in part because there simply hasn't been time.

She was only in the hospital for 24 hours, but recovery takes time, and while the lynchpin regained her strength over many weeks, four kids needed to be fed, dressed, shunted to and fro, diapered, snuggled, nose-wiped, finger-wagged, eye-rolled, laughed with, high-fived, read-to, forehead-kissed, group-hugged, tucked-in, and generally kept afloat.  Dishes needed washing and counters sprayed and wiped.  Floors needed sweeping and loads of laundry processed.  Bills needed paying and my regular day-job needed box-checking.

While my weight does not, as yet, indicate that it is so, I am but one man.  Okay, to be fair, my weight indicates currently that I am either one rather large man or two kind of scrawny ones, whereas previously it was more like one train wreck or two welterweights.  So that’s progress by any definition.

Nevertheless, I am only me.  And in the words of William Shakespeare, if you soak me, do I not prune?  The rhetorical answer to that most salient rhetorical question is, of course, no, I do not not prune, especially before the new dish-washing gloves arrived from Amazon.com.  But you catch my drift.

Since Mrs. W’s surgery, she has been my number one priority.  The children second.  The house third.  Everything else kind of gets thrown together in the crock-pot for a distant fourth.  I haven’t slept much.  And that’s taking into account the heroic contributions of both blood relatives and family-from-another-mother, so to speak, but for whom I’d be crouched on a sidewalk somewhere, wearing a tutu and drooling about the Voices.

There is a data point I must collect in this study of myself.  Me and my family - we are deeply loved.  Dear God, let that realization be enough of a prayer that I should be worth the trouble and strong enough to pay it all forward.

Beyond the sleep deprivation, I haven’t checked my blood sugar much, I haven’t exercised much, and I certainly haven’t written much.  What I can tell you is that, thank God, Mrs. W is doing great.  Making excellent progress.

I can also tell you that for the first time perhaps in all of my life, living those priorities in the absolute correct order felt liberating.  There is just something liberating in the knowledge that the activity of the moment is exactly the activity one was built for tackling in that moment.  Whether it’s helping someone up a flight of stairs post-operation; cleaning the kitchen at midnight; wiping the snot; kissing the forehead; reading Harry Potter with a cheeseball English accent.

In the study of myself, that is another point of data that I’d like to collect.  When push comes to shove, I am capable of behaving as if my family is the most important thing in my life, beyond merely saying so.

I bid the Weissology universe a good night.  I’m sweaty from the yoga, and now I must get some rest.  For tomorrow I must wake up a bit earlier than usual to check my blood sugar and fire up the oatmeal.  The good kind; the kind that warms the belly and evens out the glucose.