Melancholy

I have been a bit melancholy as of late. Maybe it is the weather (rainy) or our general health (viral central), but I've been a bit in the dumps. Or maybe dumps isn't the right descriptor...sadly reflective? A lingering malaise? Either way, it's not been conducive for keeping up with this blog. Yesterday I was going to write but Adrienne ate the internet. OK, maybe she didn't technically 'eat' the internet, but she did somehow manage to destroy the wireless cord to our place. I discovered this while comfortably nursing Nate on the couch. So rather than investigate the internet problem (which would necessitate getting my butt off the couch), I decide to browse through old pictures on the computer (a sedentary solution). I wouldn't recommend doing this while in a melancholy mood because, for me, the walk down memory road seemed so bittersweet. I sort of relived Adrienne's 2 years in 45 minute. It left me wondering how it is that she has turned into this small person so quickly. It went so fast...And if it went quickly with Adrienne, it will likely go even faster with Nate. I went to bed with that intense feeling of how fast life goes, you know where you futilely pray for time to slow down just a little, that your kids won't grow up quite so fast, that life has a pause button. I know the answer to this feeling is to live in the present, to be aware of the moment, to have no regrets about missing things. I do this, I think. I really try, anyway, but find I still regret that time goes so fast. I had one of these live-in-the-moment moments a few nights ago when we were getting the kids ready for bed. Regis was reading Adrienne poetry aloud on the bed, his solution to his wanting to read poetry and Adrienne needing a bedtime story. Adrienne, not terribly interested in the picture-less poems, did headstands and somersaults and cannonballs all around him. Meanwhile, I was sitting in the rocking chair next to the bed holding Nate, listening to poetry, and enjoying the whole scene. At that moment, all I could think was that in 20 years from now we will think back fondly on nights like tonight. I am not sure of the exact poem from Czeslaw Milosz Selected Poems, but I then heard Regis reading aloud "One life is not enough. I’d like to live twice on this sad planet....". Although out of context from the poem, it is a sentiment I can relate to.   

Storm rolling in from our balcony