Decision Fatigue

The weather has been perfect. If you know the south, then you know that by May the weather is hot, gets hotter, then remains a steady, pure sticky hell until about October. We slept with the window open and the curtains are dancing. There must be a new nest somewhere in the overgrown fig tree because it sounds like there’s a tiny choir inside our room. Hungry cheeps overpowered by one very loud mother (or maybe it’s the mate?) who is belting her morning song. I can smell the grass.

I refuse to open my eyes yet.

I reach over and feel a tiny leg that is jammed into my lower back. Somehow my soon to be 5 year old has turned himself around clockwise in the bed; his legs are at 2:00, which means his head could be anywhere between 7 and 10:00. I strain to scoop him back into a more traditional position of head at 12:00, feet at 6:00. I’m still trying to keep my eyes closed but the early light has started to creep in. I’m not ready to leave this feeling yet. This feeling of existing in between.

Why is the bed the most comfortable in the morning? I turn and soak up the warmth and the way the sheets hug me like an old friend. An entity that allows me to be whatever I am in the moment, and they still embrace me. I’m lying in this private cloud with my son, husband, and my good old friend Cozy Sheets, and I’m watching the curtains ruffle around in the breeze. As my mind starts to come online I start to comprehend the special honor of this moment, just being able to lie down and sleep with my family. Cuddling with my soon to be kindergartener who insists on coming into our bed every night. Remembering all the “sleep training” and what-not-to-dos that every new parent reads and is pressured to uphold when it comes to getting a kid to sleep in their own bed. Thinking of all the times I’ve woken up with a foot to the head, or worse; Elbow to the schnozz. There are a lot of “should” and “should nots” when it comes to raising kids, and the unsolicited commentary therein.

At this moment though, with the window open, the bird singing, the sun rising again. Nothing in the world could convince me that there was something better.

It seems that every part of our world is facing a shakedown. Everywhere we turn we are having to make a loud stand for what is right and condemn a new injustice. For parents of younger kids the day starts hard and fast in the morning with immediate work and decision making: cook breakfast, answer the questions of an endlessly inquisitive small person (or a few small persons), clothes, lunch, hair, hopefully everyone brushes teeth. Then there’s the job, or jobs, the house repairs, the getting to and from a place. The doing usually happens before the thinking. All while also witnessing and knowing that something in the world, both the one right in front of us and the one at large, isn’t right. The tidal wave of the “old ways” that my generation and younger are having to push extra hard against right now has become a constant, ever present energy suck. We are feeling everyone’s pain, all of the time. The sweet and savory frivolousness of the “before times” is so far in the rearview that it’s hard to remember what that world even was. Like driving down the highway and approaching what appears to be a dead animal; our heart mourns the loss of something more innocent. Only to get close enough for our eyes to focus and realize, oh. It’s just a plastic bag full of trash, or an old discarded drop cloth tumbling with the wind of traffic. My mind and my heart do a quick negotiation. Was any of it really worthy of mourning?

I’m feeling a nostalgia for a time that may or may not have ever existed, I can’t exactly tell. The days when it didn’t seem like every day was a test of which side you are on, how are you going to show up, and also your bills are going to cost a lot more now. Something major in our collective awareness has needed to disintegrate, and I can’t say that it’s officially dust in the wind yet. We are still figuring out the new pathway. Our earth depends on it. But for now we’re here, standing at the overlook of a wide, and often overwhelming expanse, trying to bring into focus whatever the heck is out in the distance, and there are a lot of decisions to be made.

I want to stay on the cloud today. I’m not ready to make any decisions.

As someone who has always been intensely focused, bordering on manic, about work and charging ahead with new projects, I’ve started to finally relish the yin spaces of my life: snuggling in the bed, walking the yard, lounging in the chair on the side porch, petting my senior dog and senior cat. There are spaces and activities that I’m trying to intentionally appreciate as moments of being neither here nor there. Portions of time that are allowed for just feeling, and absolutely nothing more. Much needed reminders that there is more to this existence than chaos and power struggles. A whole underbelly of the universe that we can sense with our edges, but disappears when we look too directly. I’ve had deep connections with this through meditation and journey work in the past that would levitate me to other worlds. Now in this season of life I am finding it again, when I can, in these small moments of feeling in between.

The mommy bird is singing her warbly song and my little guy is starting to stir. So is my mind, as I start to wonder what kind of bird she is and if I should start learning more about birds. Should I get a book about birds? The brain is off to the races as it unfurls a long papyrus scroll of today’s to-dos. The curtains are still doing their dance and the breeze keeps us buried into the covers. I’m not ready to make decisions but my mind is already ahead of me, plotting out which direction I’ll be taking my first step of the day in. At the top of the list, like the ever present billboard of my life:

“you need to make more money”.

It’s almost 7:00. My son is now speaking at full volume about his dreams and how he doesn’t like to play with some kid at school. My husband is playing opossum. The tidal wave of our daily lives comes creeping into the room and lifts us before we’ve even left the bed. I know I’m about to step into a new day full of decision making, but not before cuddling with this moment of magic. This feeling of time layering on top of itself where I can feel the past, present, and future all at once. The world is in flux, and so am I. It’s also rich with classical beauty, and I am grateful for this moment of understanding. The quiet knowing that maybe there is no hard and fast way of doing things right, but maybe instead a steady ripple of truth.