Feeling Normal

I am up before the birds again. You know you are up too early when you have been up for a good half of an hour before you hear your newspaper arrive on your doorstep. That is me....almost every morning. I think it is mainly because my body needs roughly seven hours of sleep each night. My days exhaust me. So, I fall into bed before 9:00 most nights. Thus, I am up before 5:00 a.m. It is very frustrating to have such an odd sleep pattern.

All that aside, I wanted to write today to share that fact that  yesterday was my first day that I felt "normal". At least, by my standards. What does normal mean to me? Mainly, it means to not have my body scream out for a nap if I am have not laid down by 1:00. Yesterday, with Steve and the kids, I was running around from 9:30-7:30.Our schedule was daunting and Friday night, I was really worried. Not to bore you with details, but in this case, they are pertinent. We dropped Madison at gymnastics class at 10:00; ran Harrison over to soccer (he had to be there at 10:30 to warm up for his 11:30 game); hung out with fellow United soccer parents before the game and then watched the game (Steve had gone back to get Madison at gymnastics in the interim); grabbed a quick lunch; drove to Poway for Madison's gymnastics league meet; grabbed a quick dinner; and ended our day at the movies. Steve constantly checked in with me, like I knew he would. After we finally arrived home at 7:30, I almost immediately went to bed.

That schedule may seem daunting to some. However, for the parents of active kids, I am sure the schedule seems "normal". The best part of it was that I felt, "normal". Yes, I was tired. Yes, standing for any given period of time was difficult. Yes, the walk from the car to the movie theater had me a bit winded. BUT, amazingly, I felt invigorated after the movie. Until I sat down, at least. I felt like I had accomplished a great feat. Or had been given a gift of normalcy. I felt fantastic.

Truth be told. beyond the fact that I have terminal cancer, my life often seems like a downward spiral in missed opportunities and disappointment. Yesterday, I read a blog post that I really related to regarding the reality of my life, or lack there of. (If you would like to read it, you may link to it here.) While the post seems negative to the reader, it fired me up in a way that is hard to explain.

It is difficult to know whether this fire perpetuated my stamina yesterday. To be honest, I do not care. I may crash hard today. I may not. Either way, I will treasure yesterday's "normalcy" as if it were my last. Until I have another...and I trust that there will be one. I hope there will be many more.