Weight of the World

When you are a mother, sometimes you feel like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.  There are the small pebbles, like remembering to take your husband’s suit to the dry cleaners.  Then there are the concrete cinderblocks, like deciding which bill can go longer without getting paid, and where the money for the oil bill is going to come from.  Then there are the glacial boulders, the size of elephants, which represent your deepest fears and worries about your children and family.  Most days, we can walk mostly upright, pulling strength from deep within to carry this load.  But there are the dark days that come, when the weight becomes a crushing force.  No matter how many times you shift the load, you find it harder and harder to keep from giving in to gravity. 

A mother’s mind is the eighth wonder of the world.  It holds so much information, a warehouse full of filing cabinets.  We remember every phone number, every birthday, anniversary, what we wore on our first date, what illnesses our children have had.  Sometimes the filing cabinets spill over onto the floor and the file that holds where we put the car keys gets stepped on.  There are dusty, rusty cabinets, which hold our childhood memories.  We break out those files every once in a while when we are in dire need of a good laugh, or in some cases, a good cry.  There are the old cobwebby cabinets in the corner that hold information like how to fix a leaky toilet, how to install a DVD player, how to start the lawnmower.  These cabinets aren’t used very much sometimes after we get married.   But in the middle of it all, there are several transparent filing cabinets that hold our deepest worries.  They are installed the moment you give birth and they are with you until the day you leave this earth.  There are several files with worries about your child’s health, growth, and development.  There might be a cabinet or two devoted to their pains; tummy aches, sore throats, earaches, growing pains.  But there’s also one that is devoted to fear.  Fear about your children growing up properly, if you are a good parent, if they will fall victim to drugs and alcohol, and keeping them safe in an ever violent world. 

The key to those transparent cabinets is always around your neck.   Use it well and use it often.  The more you ignore those cabinets, the larger and more disorganized they will get.  But if you look at those files every week and face those fears head on, you will learn sooner or later that you are fighting the good fight.  Your children are happy and healthy and that inner strength that enables you to carry those boulders overcomes the crushing gravity.  You can keep walking upright, and keep filing the pages away.

“To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.”—Marilyn French

“A mother’s life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible.  Not an hour but has its joys and fears.”—Honore de Balzac

A Cluster Day and No Chocolate In Sight...

What a day.  It started out okay, but turned into a cluster by five. 

As many of you know, we put in an above-ground pool this past spring.  We love it, and we are in it constantly.  My husband usually takes care of the pool, but I help out, especially when he is at work or away on business.  I know most of the goings-on in pool care, but am hopelessly helpless when it comes to the plumbing involved in having a pool.  Therefore, when something goes wrong, it is an all-out panic attack for me.

Tuesday I noticed that the pool was a little cloudy and I figured that it needed an extra shot of chlorine.  After adding the chlorine, I knew I needed to back-flush the filter a little to clean it out; however I was a little wary because the water level was a little low.  We haven’t had rain in about a week, even though I live in Connecticut; and as of this week was rivaling Seattle in the rainfall totals.  I back-flushed very briefly, put the pump back on “filter” and went inside.  At about ten, I went out and found that the pump was sucking air, usually an indicator for a really low water level.  I shut the pump off for the night, not really sure what to think about what was happening.  This morning I found that the water level was at least an inch below the skimmer, which was puzzling to me.  Could there have been that much evaporation over night?  I worried about it all day and decided that I would put some water in from the well with the garden hose.  I let the hose run for a while, and noticed that the water level really didn’t come up much at all.  What the hell is this? I wonder to myself.  Deciding that I didn’t need more problems, like a burned out well pump, I turned off the water, and proceeded to snap the spigot handle.  This is the type of spigot that turns off inside the house so that it doesn’t freeze in the winter, meaning that this is not an easy fix.  It would probably require a husband, a father-in-law, torches, Pex fittings…you get the picture.  Luckily, it broke in the off position.  Otherwise, I would have had to turn off the main water line to the house.  Nice.  But thank the Heavens, it broke the right way.

Now, back to the pool.  I realized after talking to my husband (across the pond), that it was possible that the valve on the pump wasn’t on “filter” all the way and somehow the pool was losing water.  Sure enough, some sand from the filter must have found its way into the valve and it got stuck open.  Unbeknownst to me, the non-plumber. 

Thus, I found the culprit leak and corrected the problem.  However, we come back to the problem of not enough water in the pool to run the filter, no way to get water from the hose, and no storms or rain clouds in sight.  What else could possibly go wrong?

Throw in the fact that my car had a recall sent out on the transmission, and now I am carless until Friday afternoon.

Throw in the fact that the hubby is in the UK and not scheduled to come back for at least another week, possibly more.

Throw in the fact that the natives (children) are getting restless in the heat and they have no pool to cool off in.  It’s like holding a treat in front of a dog’s nose and just letting her sniff it. 

Throw in the fact that I’m on a diet, have been for 71 days, and haven’t had chocolate or a drink in said amount of days.  Holy CRAP!!

Therefore, I am seriously holding on by a thin thread.  So if anything else comes up in the next week or so, just keep it to yourselves.  It may put me over the edge, and I don’t think you want to see a grown woman bawl her eyes out.  Oh where oh where did my tequila bottle go, or where or where could it be?  Just joking, Mom…I know you are shaking your head in disgust right now.  I desperately need a vacation….