TIVOLI JENSEN

August loves waking up early.

She is notorious for this, and I believe it is because I am often awake early as well, so she gets this golden “Only Child” time.

Yesterday, August woke up early, her messy hair like a halo about her head.

I was elbows deep in dishes and it took me a while to notice her standing there, sleepy eyes appraising my scrubbing.  She clutched her pillow to her face, and had the fingers of her other hand in her mouth.  You see, August’s “security” blanket/doll/item is her pillow.  Pillow, this; Pillow, that– Pillow, Pillow, Pillow.  She loves the silly thing.  She also sucks her fingers, which we’re thinking about doing something about (maybe).

“Mommy,” she said when I finally looked at her, “Pick me up.”

I raised an amused eyebrow.  “What do you say?”

“Prweez.”

“Come here.”

I bent down and wrapped my arms around her torso, as she wrapped her little legs around mine.  Her arms hugged my neck, and she just hung there.  And I washed dishes.

We’ve done this before, I continue working, but she’s a part of it.  We both benefit from clean dishes and more oxytocin.  Win, win.

August was still clutching her pillow, though.  And she was slipping from me.

“Auggie, why don’t you let go of your pillow so you can hold on?”

There was no threat of her falling, her bum was resting on the lip of the sink, but she was uncomfortable.

“No.”

I continued washing.

Upon reaching the rinse cycle, she was leaning over my right arm, the pillow clenched between her teeth.

“Auggie, let go of the pillow.”

“Ner.”  

“You’re slipping.  I can’t hold you if the pillow is there.  It’s in the way.”

“I wrant it.”

“I know you want it, but you said you want to help and cuddle with me?”

“Yres.”

“Drop the pillow.”

“Ner.”

And then she became so entangled with trying to grasp the pillow that I had to put her down.

As I finished washing, I kept thinking of that moment, my mind replaying how she walked away with the pillow smushed to her face.

If she dropped it, we could have worked together and continued discussing the need of pirates in Tangled.

But she wouldn’t do it.

And then I realized something.

Aren’t we like that?  We hang onto these grubby things and think that if we keep them then we’ll be fine?  Like that dream to do something great and big that takes up our thoughts.  Or that desire to find the “perfect” someone, so we dash away those someones who would have brightened our futures.  Or how we want our lives to seem so put together, that we ignore the real mess inside?

Because life will go on, but we choose to either experience or walk away from it.
I really wanted to be an actor.  I obsessed over it, desired it, fantasized about it, and in doing so, created this poison that seeped from my dreams into my reality.  I couldn’t be happy with anything around me, because I wasn’t doing the thing I really wanted.  I became this depressed shell of a person, because the woman I wanted to be was not who I was.  And I believed there was nothing I could do to be her.  I neglected to see how full life was, because the fullness I thought was best was absent.

Finally, I reached the Low.  I couldn’t do it anymore.  Along with so much else going on in my mind, I realized I could not continue my life in the way I was living it.

So, in the pit of despair, I opened my hands.

And I let go of the dream.

And though it hurt– as if I was cutting off an appendage I had gotten used to– it was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

I had joy again.

I dropped my proverbial pillow and found myself hugging and clinging onto life with renewed vigor.  I wanted to breathe deep and full and experience again.  I found my life was exactly what I had wanted all along.  And it was good.

When I finished the dishes, I sat with August.  She still had the pillow to her head and the fingers in her mouth.  And I smiled, kissing the top of her head while I picked up a book.

And she set down the pillow so she could snuggle closer.

In this tiny moment, I learned something:

Life will follow us– waiting for when we open our eyes to reality–

with its arms open, ready to embrace us as much as we embrace it.