Day 1 – Circle Game One

Use these three words in a story.  Carousel, Insensitive, Massage

Start with:

Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on his wheel! 

Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on his wheel!  The daily grind of unloading the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher, doing the laundry, picking up after the kids, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner, trying hard not to eat the same things over and over again.  I am on a never ending carousel ride where the piped in music is the tune of children bickering, screaming and crying.  The carousel horses are couch cushions and pillows all over the floor. 

I don’t mean to sound insensitive, truly I don’t.  I appreciate that this is where my life is right now.  The life of a wife.  The life of a mother.  These are things I love, people I love.  But day after day the carousel ride gets long, monotonous and excruciatingly dull.  The old saying that the days are long but the years are short rings so true to me right now.  And it’s not that working women don’t face monotony in their days.  They do, I know that.  But they have the benefit of adult conversation, lunches out with friends or co-workers, stimulating work problems, even office politics.  The only office politics I face around here is negotiating who had the Zhu Zhu pet first.    

Some days I long for my childless life where Saturdays were spent bumming around cute boutiques, afternoon massage and facial appointments, and strolls around the city exploring new neighborhoods, restaurants and bars.   With two rambunctious young boys bumming around cute boutiques has become a verbal war of “don’t touch that,” “stop hitting your brother,” and “use your inside voice”.   My most recent massage was me collapsed on the floor while the boys ran back and forth over my prostrate body.  And my days roaming around the city came to an abrupt end when we moved to the suburbs to have a more suitable place to raise our family. 

And yet, while I think back fondly of those childless days in the city I find myself giving thanks to God that my life now has more meaning, more substance.  The problems I solved when I was working were important in the minute, for the companies or the people that I helped.  But they were meaningless in the long term and when compared to the work that I do now.  Raising two boys to be young men of whom I can be proud.  Raising boys who understand the value of family. Who are polite, compassionate, generous and respectful of people, places and things.  The work I used to do benefited so few when compared to the work I do now.  For everyone that my boys come into contact with will benefit from my hard work.

And so I run on this gerbil wheel of never ending house work.  And I enjoy the carousel ride with my boys.  Because I know that soon, my boys will be men and will not wish to join me on the carousel.   The gerbil wheel will always be there, but the time on the carousel with my children is short and I vow to live each day enjoying the ride.