This was our dining room table this week.
I was going to remove the Vitamin C before taking the picture, but decided to leave it there.
Because nothing sums up our collective mom lives more than this picture.
Sore throats AND warm vanilla sugar candles.
Unused sparklers for New Years Eve because sickness overtook so many of us AND our favorite game of all time played about a bajillion times.
The bitter and the sweet.
The hard and the happy.
All of it intertwined together in one big beautiful mess.
A beautiful mess that brings memories that will be spoken of, laughed about and treasured.
A beautiful mess that reminds us that we are frail, yet strong, tender, yet tough.
A beautiful mess that speaks to hope that is unquenchable and fierce mom love that will do whatever it takes to bring our people together to love and be loved.
Even in the middle of sore throats and Covid diagnoses.
And difficult conversations
And unspoken battles inside our mom selves and inside the selves of our people and even their people.
Our dining room table is all cleaned up now.
Things are back where they belong (for the most part).
The Vitamin C is back in the bathroom cabinet (and has been replaced with bottles of Paxlovid).
The warm vanilla sugar candle is almost all the way burned down, waiting for one final lighting while I put the decorations away.
And a new year has come, with all its own pressure to be that, change that, fix that.
I'm fighting those voices in my head, while at the same time, holding space for a fresh start and the hope that comes with it.
BUT...
I have a feeling that this year will be like my dining room table.
Like all the other years that have gone before.
Full.
Full of sicknesses AND surprises.
Full of heartbreak AND happy moments.
Full of the scary AND sacred unknown.
Full of the beautiful mess of mom life, one I wouldn't trade for the world.
Would you?
From my mom heart to yours,
Esther
P.S. The Cheese It Grooves were a gift to one of my bigs (they are his "absolute favorite) and he ate 99/100 of the box and left it behind with approximately 2 crackers. Some things never change, right?