A walk in the woods

Today, I am cleaning madly, scrubbing floors and bathrooms, attempting to focus my mind on mundane but attainable tasks. Cleaning is not my favorite distraction, in fact it is a last resort for me. The cleaning part of being a stay at home mom, I suck at it. My heart is heavy today, my mood fowl, my faith changing, challenging me. Cleaning has helped me through the morning but I realize I need to process not avoid and so I write.
My girls are at summer church camp, they will be home late tomorrow. Caleb is still sleeping, rather exhausted from his long day yesterday. I'm feeling pressure today, pressure to hold my own, to not fall apart, to not struggle, to remain on top of things, hopeful, present, faithfilled and nonquestioning. But I have decided to let myself be, to let myself feel, to not deny or try to hide. I'm angry, frustrated, tired, melancholy, feeling the loss of so many things.
Caleb saw new doctors yesterday and also had some testing. He will be 2 in just a few weeks. In preemieland, this is advertised as the magic number. Most preemies are able to catch up developmentally by age 2. At two, you either graduate out of the program of NICU or transfer to a developmental peditatrician if you are not developmentally age appropriate. Apparantly for us, 2 is not the magic number. Age is relative, I'm in my thirties I know this. Development and personality are relative. Apparantly there is concern when a child significantly lags in several areas of development. We had lovely doctors yesterday even though we were in a tiny exam room for over 3 hours, Caleb and I. He, clothed only in a diaper, because any minute the doctor would be in to examine him. My sweet little boy, in just a diaper, toddling all over a tiny room with tile floors and metal cabinents and no toys,continually unfastening and refastening his diaper. I kept him entertained looking out the window at the parking garage searching for trucks like Pap's. But it was a very long,anticipatory three hours. Any minute we would meet our new doctor who would hold the keys to what the future looks like for my former preemie. She would be able to tell us why he isnt catching up, what this realistically means for his future, what we could do to help him. We were also having a follow up with our neurologist, a visit I perceived to be a quick, congratulatory, "Your son doesnt have brain damage" moment. One should never go into medical appointments with presumptions. I should know this by now, I have been on the NICU rollercoaster ride for two years. We talked again about life long disability, learning delays, neurological concerns. The magic number of age two did not hold the magic I believed it would, there was no moment of escaping his prematurity. Rather, we had a moment of fully recongnizing his prematurity would still continue to cause issues for him, most likely long into the future.
I came home exhuasted, from trying to entertain him, from information overload, from added therapy and homework assingments, from a little boy who screamed most of the way home, from rush hour traffic and from the internal battle of what I should feel as compared to what I do feel.
I should remain in hope, in promise, in faith, in gratitude. Can I do that while I also feel so aware, so very aware, of loss, of struggle, of injustice, of guilt? My faith seems to have changed from believing he will be completely healed to believing I will be equipped to be what I need to be his mother.
I'm struggling to adjust to menopause at 33. My mind and heart have been wrapped in that, in all that I've been hit with unexpectadly in that sphere of my life. Sometimes it feel as though it is too much to balance, I dont want to juggle a bunch of balls. Really, I would rather put the balls on the shelf and take a nap, a summer siesta. There's pressure to stay strong for my girls, for my husband, for others and then there is my cry to breathe, to be held, to be allowed to be who I am now,not who I was two years ago. Let me be, please just let me be. Let me be sad. Let me be angry. Let me be lost. I'll find my way back. I just need a moment.
It's like a great hike in the mountains, when you just want to sit for a minute and catch your breathe on a fallen log. I dont need you to carry me out of the woods. I dont need you to give me a map of the best way out of the woods, your way out of the woods. Just let me be, let me sit, let me feel the aches of my body, let me look at the mountain looming ahead and let me figure out the best way out for me. You can wait with me, sit with me, as long as you sit quietly and recongnize this is my walk, my woods, my journey.