Shattered

It’s Monday morning. We went for our morning exercise, all five of us.

First round, second round: I'm with kids and Kobi, talking, singing, laughing.Third round. This time I'm alone. My sweet nomadic family has all gone to shower. And, alone, exercising, (very much like writing) my mind and soul do their best scrubbing. Here’s the three shattered things that I recall running through my mind.

1-  I have eaten, like a nomadic madman, so much junk food this week. Sweet Kobi bought a snickers bar for each family member. I ate five (everyone else's and mine) in one day. The kids bought sugared caramel candies at  Santa Maria Gardens, which I ate half of. Pringles, popcorn, cookies, whatever I could get my hands on. Dear God, I went mad this week. This way, I will never regain the physical form I am working so hard to attain. It’s shattering the self image I’ve started to see in myself these past few weeks. No more sweets, no more junk; get back on focus Gabi.

2- Glass jars mean the world to me. My new glass jar, that I spoke of two nights ago, means the world to me. But it was too good to be true. My Welch’s Grape Jelly glass jar is now shattered glass. I’m upset about that, cuz it really was significant in my own little private world. And as I think about that loss, I realize that something else (good) has shattered in me, too.


3- Kobi. It sort of dawned upon me the kind of luck I have had in having this guy for my life partner. I just got really lucky. He doesn’t drink, smoke, have the need to go party with guy friends, and is not sports crazy and glued to the games on TV. He’s not a workaholic, either. His hard work in Israel all these years freed me to homeschool (which he supported though he didn’t necessarily agree with) and run after entrpenueral dreams I was so sure would catch like wild fire. And even after years of them not bearing fruit, he still trusted me and encouraged me to pursue my dreams.

He does trust me, in so many important ways that I forget to appreciate. He’s open minded and trusts that I know (sometimes) what to do in the parenting department. He’s open minded and willing to talk about anger and mistakes. He knows how to admit when he’s wrong, he knows how to apologize, and he knows how to let me apologize without making me feel like dirt. He knows how to pick me up when I fall, and how to shut up and listen when I’m miserable. He also knows how to make me laugh.

He’s attracted to me, even when I’m fat. And puts me in my place when I go way out of line. He’s crazy enough to dream the same dreams with me. And takes my theoretical ideas and puts in all the sweat, time, and frustration to make them come true. (Meantime, he leaves me alone to  dream, and to write). He knows that our family is all the more blessed when I have time to myself. And so, he gives that to me, a lot. He takes the kids for days on end so that I can reconnect, work, and write.

And with that running through my mind, I reached our little cabana, slightly out of breath and glistening in sweat. I find three showered kids and a smiling Kobi.

May all the glass jars my little hands hold shatter to pieces, if this one guy stays mine.
  

Posted in: Discovering Ourselves