Last night Veronica had trouble sleeping. Her tummy is upset.

So, from midnight to two, I was up and down to help her relax.

Except, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. It used to. I used to wonder how I could possibly do this FOREVER. Other parents didn’t help either. They would never say, “You will be stronger, you will be fine after time”

They just roll their eyes and say “Oh you think it gets better? It doesn’t.I haven’t slept since my firstborn, and he’s 40 now!”

Crao, Crap Crap. It’s enough to make you get into your car and drive and not look back.

But I remember one young girl talking to me. She was maybe 12, and the oldest of a large brood. I was pregnant, and she said “I am so scared to be pregnant! I think it would be so hard and it would hurt so much!”

What am I supposed to say to that?

I’m supposed to be the grown up and reassure HER.

“Well,” I said. “You have to be older and then you will be strong enough. THink how much stronger you are than when you were 8! When you are older you will be strong enough to bear it.”

“You think so? Maybe…”

“That is also why you should wait!”

See how clever I was? And how utterly ignorant? I think a 12 year old probably recovers much faster from teh physical injury of childbirth.

But it turns out that I’m recovering from the shock of the definite possibility of never sleeping a solid 8 hours for the next 5 years.

It can be done. And, if you make sure to leave room in your life for breathing it doesnt’ have to be that bad.

But here I am, talking about it some more. Talking about the unrelenting shock of parenting

AGAIN.

I’m not thinking new original thoughts. I’m sleepy. I’m just mostly churning old thoughts. Treading water.

But at least I’m still afloat.

There was a thing a while ago about big snakes that got ambitious and tried  to eat alligators. The alligators were often bigger than the snakes. The real definition of trying to  it off more than you can chew–or more accurately, swallowing whole was you cannot chew or even digest.

My daughter turned 3. And that has brought some new things into my life.  Things like a much diminished nap schedule. And things like frequent sleeping through the night. Not regular sleeping through the night, but frequent.

and potty training. and the even bigger deal of PreSchool. She doesn’t need me quite so bad all the freaking time.

she hasn’t got the memo that she doesnt need me. She’s super clingy.

But she doesn’t need me. She wants me and she doesn’t know what to do with herself now that she doesn’t need me quite so much. BUt she doesn’t need me.

And I get to figure out what to do with myself again.

I have this problem of thinking “…and NOW I can get back to NORMAL.”

Like there was ever any kind of normal. As if all the raising of my daughter was a small distraction on the REAL track I was following.

I feel stupid to realize I was thinking that way. And then sort of amazed that I managed to do as much as I have managed to do while I was keeping track of this not-yet-three-year-old

I do care about her, and I want…I am committed…to making her life good. But I cannot be exclusively commited to that. My life requires some things of its own to be good.

I’m getting to the part where I will be done with the bulk of digesting this alligator and maybe I can start to slowly slither again instead of just roll.

Some people have more than one kid. I have so much admiration for that. I always wanted that, but now that i”m in the middle of just the one, I am pretty sure I could not manage it.

Because it takes so much time, And I foolishly didn’t really expect that.

It seems funny, a tree falling in the forest, to realize how fully I always had the property rights to myself.

I fought very hard a number of times to have it.

I wonder, really, what I was fighting for?

but then, once you have a thing and you don’t have to struggle for it

if you can just leave that thing lying around anywhere and come back to it because nobody would take it because they weren’t interested

Then maybe its not precious.

Maybe it didn’t matter

hm

I don’t think that’s the right metaphor. I think instead, that the trick is like this. It’s MY magic wand. Only I can use it. Nobody else can make it work. So, nobody else wants it. But it is invaluable to me.

Yes, I fought for me many a time

and I won me. And i guess I still have to keep winning me.

Magic wands will go dormant if they are never used.

Yesterday, I spent some time playing the piano. I miss playing the piano. Naturally, I couldn’t play the upright piano. I had to play the keyboard because Veronica was asleeping. But i was trying to noodle out a jazz song that had been running through my head.

I was rusty.

But I still had it.

And i guess it’s part of the magic wand to keep waving it.

“Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” -Steve Jobs

there are reasons, Jobs. But I guess there are very few excuses.

Sometimes the heart is not so clear.

This post was a true note-to-self. I think it was as personal as a shopping list. But my heart says “write!”

I suppose that I am waving my wand by doing this. It’s my wand after all.

Things are starting to change. I have felt this for a while, but it’s becoming more pronounced.

The last time everything changed, when was it? Do I remember it? Well, yes, I guess I do.

It was called Mosaic. And it was called the Internet, or more precisely the Web.

And everything changed.

Not everyone noticed. Not for years and years. But I was a the spider and the fly. I made it as much as I was caught in it.

Now, it’s the warp and woof of everything. Maybe it’s like writing; there are a few illiterate societies out there, but they will be affected soon enough. It’s only a matter of time.

Fine. That was the last time everything changed.

Now, I feel it differently. Last time, something was built. This time, everything is being destroyed.

it’s not so much a desctruction, but a collapse. The flaw was inherent in the system.

There is a granulated self-interest in every single institution that will inevitably cause the disintegration. It’s already disintegrated. We only wait for a passing giant to sneeze, and it will come tumbing down.

Anyone can see it.

I am not speaking pessimistically. I am not mad about it. It’s just that I see evidence of institutional disintegration at every turn.

I am trying to find examples of where and when it is working well. Because when people can work together on something they are all excited about, that is the  next thing.

I am looking. I am looking. I’d like to see that next thing