I suppose that after a hectic day raising kids, sometimes the only thing that keeps a parent "in the game," committed to doing the best they can, is watching their child sleep. After these perfect little monsters have ransacked your house, ran your ass off picking up after them, complained about the food you made, told you that you were mean because you didn't give them candy, irritated you while you tried to have one thought to yourself, interrupted you during your only sane adult phone conversation, and screamed all day in volumes only heard in the fiery furnace of hell itself...
(the descriptions above are in no way a reference to any persons, of course...)
After all of this, they finally get to bed. After a few hours, you start feeling normal again...you can hear yourself have intelligent thoughts, you can finally take a shower, you can pour a glass of wine. You are a brand new you. And after this evening of perfection, you wander into the children's rooms to pick up one last time and they catch you off guard...their angelic tenderness hits you all over again, and you remember that there IS a soul inside, that they really are so vulnerable despite what they convey, and that you are completely head over heels in love with them.
I believe this realization is called perspective.
Anger, details, to do lists, lack of research, pain, reactions, codependency...all of these can steal our perspective. This of course applies to more than children. Even now, as I am away from
the saint for two weeks, I find myself tiptoeing into the shallow end of this pool of perspective. By the time I get home, I'll have soaked in perspective...and be read to see my marriage with new eyes...the eyes of absence.
When daily irritations subside, it is lovely to find my utter adoration and deep satisfaction with everything Joel has ever been, everything he is, and everything he ever will be.
Absence, perspective...these are things all relationships need to feel. Isn't it funny? We want as much time as possible with those we love, yet we need time away from them in order to see them more clearly. We need to see them asleep; we need to remember they are vulnerable.
And tonight, much like how I imagine a parent feels when they look at their child sleeping, I am looking at life while it slumbers. I feel proud, I feel softened, I feel endeared to this weird thing called being human.
