Out of patience

Today was a not spectacular day. This morning, before I had made it out to the horses, I noticed R. shuffling up the stairs, with one foot stepping up and the second foot joining the first before moving on. Alternating feet, one on a step, had been something we worked on from Day 1, and is also something R. mastered over eight years ago. Sometimes I do have to remind her, bug then she changes to alternating feet and life moves on. 

Life didn't move on this morning. It stopped dead in its tracks and screamed as though something was trying to kill it. R. did make it up the stairs with me moving her feet one step at a time, but by the end neither of us was at our best. R. was so not her best I was suddenly very afraid we were heading into psychosis territory. So for the next two hours I sat with her on the stairs regulating myself so she had a chance of regulating herself. G. fed and turned out the horses, H. completely cleaned the kitchen. And I stuffed flashbacks to three years ago back into the hidden corner of my head where they belong. 

I salvaged some of the morning, getting done desk work done and finally cleaning the stalls with enough time to grab a bite of food before heading off with G. to an appointment a half hour away. It is important that you know it was a half hour away, because on the way home, two exits from our house on the tollway, I realized I had left my sweater in the waiting room. A sweater I were literally all the time and didn't want to miss for a week. So instead, I drive back to the office, retrieved the sweater, and finally made it home. 

But I was truly out of patience at that point, as I discovered while trying to help a child learn to make a roux. I wasn't very helpful. Or pleasant. My apologies to that child. 

I'm also just tired. Tired of animals dying. Tired of bills that are larger than our income. Tired of the state of the world. And just physically tired. So I pitched up the glass of wine J. had poured for me, grabbed the catalogue...


which had come in the mail, and fantasized about which trip I would take first if I had unlimited income. 

Would it be England and the Golden Age of Mysteries? Shakespeare's England? Cruising the Mediterranean to coincide with a total solar eclipse? Or how about Italy and Leonardo da Vinci? A tour of Morocco? It's so hard to choose. There is an Great Courses professor on each tour giving lectures about each place which will be visited. What's not to like? 

We all have bad days. None of us is perfect or the perfect parent. But life goes on and a good night's sleep can make a lot of things seem more manageable. So I'll grab the book I'm reading and read for a bit and take my own advice and get some rest. 

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