On Forgetting...

I'm a mom of five. Five in just under seven years. That's a lot of sleepless nights crammed into a fairly short amount of time. Sometimes I feel like I've lost my mind, both for having five kids, and because I have five kids. Pregnancy brain can only carry you so far - and then how do you explain all the forgetting.

I forget school snacks and registration forms, I forgot to bring my checkbook to the babysitter's, and then kept forgetting to pay her later - for two whole weeks. I have failed to provide immunization forms for preschool for two years, until the school year is almost over. (And last year I don't think I did it at all.) I don't forget birthdays or phone numbers or where I parked my car, but I seem to forget a lot of other stuff that makes me feel so scatterbrained. Well, I am scatterbrained.

Life seemingly passes by in such a blur. I need to stop and sit a while. Not sit on FB, but to sit and  watch  and  see  and  listen  and  hear.  I want to remember these days. The smiles, the sillies, cute toesies and nosies. I want to always be able to remember how they smelled, and how I held them as babes, how they later wrapped their chubby little arms around my neck, practically squeezing my head off, one of them.

But also in the grasping on of these days, I don't want to forget the "me" days, which seem to keep getting lost in the shuffle. I don't want to forget my dreams, my passions, how to laugh, how to dance. I don't want to be forgotten under my mom-gear, that once, once I was a whole person who lived independently of a spouse or children. My identity was found in me and who I was, mostly, and how I had become reconnected with an identity in Christ. But it seems I don't have time for all that "me" stuff anymore. Not even hardly for "God" stuff. I don't want to forget how to speak Spanish - it is my passion, my soul song, my gift. I don't want to forget how to dance and prance and not fall down when I do. I don't want to forget how to hear Him, to see Him, to seek and to hunger for him. But I'm afraid it is happening, has happened.

If only the world could stop for a day, or slow down just a tad. I could use a big pause button, to press at times so I can gather my thoughts, my messes and my intentions. But the flurry of my life, or life right now, seems like a giant whirlwind, tossed and torn and strewn about. I want to see beauty and joy. I want to  see  my life so I won't forget.

Cuz today,

I went to town to buy milk and pears.

I came home without milk.

Story of my life.

I want to be more intentional. I just hope I haven't forgotten how.