The Marathon, One Crawling Step at a Time

I've been laid out for a few days because of a stomach bug.  I didn't have any meals going the wrong way up my esophagus, but I did feel all my available energy diverted to the defense systems.


Yes, I totally just alluded to Star Trek.


and LOL-ed.

Anyway, I have been sleeping a lot.  And in my profession, that means nothing got done.


I take it back. The kids are still alive, school got done, and the house didn't burn down.


But other than that, nothing got done.


Hence, the latest Facebook status:

"Stand in the middle of life and feel overwhelmed. Check.
Play piano in worship. and procrastination. Check.
Stand in the middle of life and struggle not to burst into tears. Check.
Moving on because crying is not your thing. Check."

It's not just because of the multiple children that have overrun my house.  

Ok, maybe it is.

But there is also the husband.

And, the laundry. And the dishes.  And the taxi-service, the meal preparation, the practicing piano, the anxiously waiting for all the tax forms, the laundry room that smells like garf, the dog that needs to go to the vet, the super-spiritual-mandatory-to-be-a-good-Christian quiet times, the disastrously messy master bedroom, the gross toilets, the quickly emptying gas tank, the low bank balance, the hubby working 8 graveyard shifts in a row, the early and freezing runs, the other runs (TMI?),  the lying bathroom scale, the annoying dawdling pre-teen daughter...

and soo much more.  

But I've run out of clever adjectives for clever phrasing of my daily duties.  Or whatever they're grammatically called.

So here's the point:

Stay with me here. . .

The above picture has captured three pairs of legs of three marathoners.  Notice they look pretty decent.  You know, all buff and what-not.

And I've said before that life itself is a marathon.  One that I am painstakingly running/training for.  

Taking the metaphor even further, I'm fairly certain, almost positive, I don't look like the above picture. In fact, today I looked more like this:

and felt like doing this:

I know as a SuperMom I'm supposed to be like this guy:

only trendy and pretty and whatever.

But truth be told, I am not SuperMom and today I hit a wall.

So what did I do?

First, I took a deep breath.

In with the Holy Spirit, out with the lies and feelings of failure.

And then I took about one hundred more breaths.  While my children ran amuck and I was cooking lemon chicken and my 2-yo dumped all of the pattern blocks onto the kitchen floor.

In, out.  In, out.  About a hundred times.  Sometimes I yelled in between: also therapeutic.

So on my way to my bathroom, I kicked some of the blankets and dirty clothes into one pile next to the laundry room.  Before I washed my hands after finishing my business, I cleaned the bathroom floor a bit.  On my way out of my bathroom, I picked up three bags of hand-me-down clothes and put them in the boys' closet.  Back in the kitchen, I cleared my counters, did the dishes, and drank green tea.

I didn't plan it out.  I didn't put those things on a to-do list. I was just walking to the bathroom.  I was just walking back from the bathroom.  I was just waiting for the chicken to finish baking.  

When I ran 10 miles last week, I didn't plan every mile.  First, I just made myself get to one mile.  Then 2.  I fixed my form.  I took a few deeper breaths to relax.  I made adjustments to my stride.  I fixed my shoe laces.  I stopped to stretch.  I re-fueled.  And a couple of hours later, I was at the end. 

One step at a time.  One thing at a time.  

Thinking of the 10 miles as a whole, I was definitely overwhelmed.  Looking at my life in general, I was frantically overwhelmed.  

But somehow, in my total weakness and desperation, the kitchen got cleaned.  The kids' teeth got brushed and kisses and hugs given and bedtime over-with.  Math assignments were finished, laundry was done and the master bedroom bed made.  A small bowl full of Whoppers was consumed while still remaining under caloric budget.  

And a great and inspiring blogpost was written.  

Ok, maybe not that last part.

But if you find yourself, as I did earlier, at the end of your rope and wanting to weep and gnash teeth and all that junk, just be real with yourself.  You're life is overwhelming.

Just do one thing at a time.

Run one step at a time, no matter how slow and painful.

And then post it on Facebook so people know that you are a real person, not SuperMom.

Just sayin'.