endure for a night

I first thought of this blog as a kind of scrap book, a way to document the life I'm living with my children.  But I think it's ok to start moving past cute baby pictures, though there are some of those too, don't worry!  Oh look, here are a few, from a recent playdate with cousins:

But right now I want to talk a little bit about how things are going.  And how right now, I am scared.  Deep-down, nails-bitten-off, awake-in-the-middle-of-the-night, scared.  Because, for a bunch of reasons that aren't all that important, I have to find a new job.  I am my family's financial support, and I have three babies to feed.  If I can't pull this off, we're in serious trouble.  So I worry, and chew my nails, and try really, really hard to think about anything else.  Sometimes that works, but sometimes I feel like the walls are closing in and I can't catch my breath.  And I'm flailing around, trying to think of something, anything, I can do that will bring in the income we need (yes, need) and will still allow me to be truly there for my kids.  Not "there for my kids" in the sense that every mother is there for her kids, because of course we all are.  But physically there - on the first day of school, at the soccer game, over afternoon snack.  I have a few crazy plans, but any one of them would be a huge leap of faith and risk failure on a massive scale.  I'm terrified.

But you know what?  We've actually been here before.  We thought we were in a crisis a few times - a job search that went nowhere, a house purchase that fell through, a new baby on the way when we hadn't quite gotten all of our ducks in a row.  And it all worked out, every time.  And every time, the result was better than I could have even imagined.  So why am I so afraid?  Why haven't I learned?  Listen, I know, I know, that life doesn't always work out.  People really do lose their homes, have to start from scratch.  I'm not unrealistic about that, and that's what keeps me up at night.  But I also have to remember that we always come through it somehow.  And maybe a leap of faith every now and then is for the best.