A Few of My Favorite Things

The packages are literally in brown paper, tied up in string, recycled packing paper cozy beneath the blinking tree.

I read of a mother having tea with her children when one of them has a breakdown (we all break down sometimes).  "It sounds as if you need to talk.  Would you like to have some tea with me?"  Do unto them as we...  I am going to try this with Nora who has lately been saying, "Nobody loves me," and I don't know where this is coming from, and nor do I know how to respond other than to assure her this isn't true.  But simply saying, "That's not true" doesn't change how real the feeling is to her.  Tea with Nora.

I am often overwhelmed by the weight of making each decision for the family and can understand the blessing of having another who might decide every once in awhile what we should have for dinner, who might bundle the coats, who might drive the car, pick up a few things at the store, run the bath, load the dishes.  I think about erasing this paragraph, but maybe there are others who have felt this way, too, and I don't want them to feel as if they are truly alone.  Because I am not either.  And then I wonder, can Nora hear me thinking...nobody loves me...

How easily we believe the lies.  Those dirty tricks.

I am almost done grading and am getting my hair done tomorrow.  And when I sit down at the Spur with an excel spreadsheet and a cup of coffee, I'm going to feel like one of these "new women" everyone makes such a big deal about.  Who knows?  Maybe...just maybe, something brave is hiding underneath all this (bad) hair.  I'm hoping it's good hair and some hutzpah to stomp lies.