Moving past "survival mode"

This has been a momentous, bittersweet week for me.  We had to put our beloved basset hound to sleep Monday night.  He was 13, sick, he lived a wonderful 8 1/2 years with us, but he was suffering.  So my husband and I made the difficult choice.

Elvis, our first baby.

Long story short, we grieved, we cried, we remembered all the good times we had with our best buddy Elvis.  We put our boys to bed, then my husband and I went to bed. together. How is that unusual, you ask?  Lady, what is the big deal? You are thinking to yourself. Well, let me tell you.... I began to realize how much effort and energy went into caring for our elderly pet. When the dog couldn't do the stairs, and had to go out at night frequently, my husband would sleep downstairs with the dog.  I would sleep upstairs with our kids. No one would get a good night's sleep.  The racket of going in and out, turning lights on, so we wouldn't fall over the gates (that kept the dog from the stairs), it was exhausting.


Then something interesting and unexpected dawned on me, last night, while I was watching TV.   I was no longer just existing.  I wasn't living to just make it through the day, to get enough rest to make it through the next day.  I have made it out of survival mode. 
 
I have been in survival mode since winter  2011, I was working full time, I had a precocious 3 year old, I was expecting my second child, my mother was going through radiation therapy, and I was helping my sick mother in caring for my elderly grandmother, who lived alone with Alzheimer's.  Things improved, thank goodness...... but..... I was still surviving, existing, if you will.  I wasn't living my life fully.  As the years progressed, I think I hit my low point in February 2014.  I felt like I was a shell of the interesting person I had become.  I slowly dug myself out of my self imposed misery (not quite the right word, misery, but it will do).  Things got better.  My youngest was a challenge at age 2.  I like him much more now that he is 3.  He goes to school twice a week, he has mellowed a bit... Maybe I have mellowed too?


Hey you moms who are in the trenches, living the mini van dream, you can do this.  You really, really can.  Very soon you can laugh about it.  Well, if you can't laugh about it, at least soon you won't want to cry about it.


Hey you moms who have been there and have survived, congratulations!  I'm proud of you.  Remember to give this pep talk, or at least a kindly smile to some woman who is armpits deep.


Thanks for reading my ramblings.  It is entirely too quiet in my house right now and I have to go check and see what nefarious plots are being planned.