Too Much

Original artwork by Pennie Mirande
Prints can be purchased at https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/pennie-strople.html

"You're too much," I sometimes say to my one of my littles, most often with a smile on my face. Usually, it's when they've said something to outwit my wittiest comebacks, or when their silly antics have me holding back guffaws even though they're purposefully distracting us from a task that needs completing.

Other days, though. Well. Some days are just a bit much. Some seasons are. "This is too much," I might mutter under my breath, when I'm feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or just plain beat at the task of parenting. If you're in the midst of raising small people, then you know. If you've been there done that, you know, too.

"Raising children is not for the faint of heart," a dear friend once told me. What a relief, I remember thinking. I'm not the only one at my whit's end! Now that our kids are 12, 10, and 8, so much of the repetitive, moment-by-moment exhaustion of parenting is behind us. But, oh! The activities and the school gear and the appointments and the late night talks with young girls who are growing up right before my eyes. The work is different, but the heart space it all requires is the same. Parenting stretches and hones and grows me. Always. And, some days, it just plain exhausts me.

Today on a gray, low sky day, after a tiring week, I was in want of just the littlest sweep of sunshine. We tumbled out of the minivan after school, after piano, after a disastrous trip to Walmart. We dragged all the stuff into the house--one armload of grocery bags holding pasta, jarred sauce and pre-made meatballs, three backpacks that were immediately flung across the floor, and eight shoes scattered willy-nilly turning the sunroom into a hazardous roadblock. After four trips from the van to the house and three kids washed up and playing outside again, I did a 360 of my kitchen and threw my hands up. This mess. This chaos. This. This. All this.

Just do the next thing, I reminded myself.

While I made dinner, I looked for flights to visit my grandmother in Florida, called my sister Kait three times to coordinate our trip, and boiled two kinds of pasta (one gluten free) and a jar of sauce with miniature kid meatballs. While canceling one flight to book another I warned the man helping me over the phone that I was about to yell to my kids to come into dinner.

"Do you want me to take off my headset," he asked?

"What? Oh, no! It's fine." I assured him and called them in, raising my voice just enough for them to hear me.

"Is that what you call yelling?" he laughed.

"They were just outside the door," I replied, as if to assure him that I could yell when I wanted to. Even though I never really want to.

The kids tumbled inside. Breathless. Smelling like spring. "What's for dinner?"

"Spaghetti and meatballs," I replied, still on the line with the customer service rep.

"Boy, that sounds good," he said over the receiver. "I mean, I'd like that for dinner."

I laughed.

"Oh, sorry," he retraced his steps. "I just said out loud what popped in my head. I'm really sorry."

"No, it's okay. No worries at all."

"Who are you talking to?" the kids all begged to know as I waved them into the bathroom again to wash up for dinner. I hung up and pondered the fact that the man at the other end was just a bit envious of the dinner we were about to sit down to, simple as it was.

Sometimes a jar of sauce and a bag of meatballs is enough. Sometimes the mess can stay awhile. Sometimes just sitting around the table to listen to my kids tell about the game they made up outside and the stuff that happened at school is enough.

And then...one is singing while the other is shouting for her to be quiet so she can finish  her story.  Then one leaves in the middle of the meal crying, goodness knows why. After dinner my sister Elissa calls and I can't help it, I  find myself locked in the bathroom, sitting on the closed lid of the toilet crying long after the kids have scattered from the table. I tell her about these little flights of panic that keep returning unexpected and unwelcome and that I can't seem to beat them back."There's nothing that big going wrong. It's just life. But why am I so anxious?"

"I know," she says. "Day-to-day can be tough. It's okay."

Even when the small anxieties that pile up one by one press in and down on the space you need to properly fill your lungs, even then it can be okay.

"Mom," my oldest charges into the bathroom as I'm sharing one last laugh with my sister, whose son and a friend thought it would be fun to stick their heads in the water of the school urinal this week. "We're ready."

"Okay," I say and thank my sister for listening to me ramble and promise to be in touch later. Then I'm led to the dining bench where I face the living room and watch a play unfold. My children have decided to act out a Bible story tonight instead of just reading it around the table. Tonight's feature? "Jonah and the Big Fish," complete with a microphone (heaven help me) and costumes and props (so much for sitting in a clean living room with a book later). The girls feed their younger brother lines in loud whispers when he can't remember what he's supposed to say.  And they all ad lib, too. It's loud and silly and they are full of the story and fully pleased with themselves. I clap and laugh at the appropriate times.

And it's just enough to free up the tightness in my chest. What have I been leaving out? I wonder after my little episode of fearfulness passes. I already know the answer. I've plunked all my burdens right down heavy on my own shoulders. Those narrow shoulders that weren't meant to bear every little thing. Even in this season of Lent, I've forgotten again, who carries the weight of the world. Life can sometimes be too much, even when my head tells me logically it shouldn't be. It just is. But the mercy is how the smallest things pour light through the chinks in the walls I build around my heart. Those little tears in my strength are what remind me: his grace can be sufficient for even me. And that grace is an invitation, like an empty swing hanging from a solitary tree in an open field. Come. Sit. Rest. Listen. Know.

If Lent is anything to us in our modern can-do age of technological independence and intellectual freedom, it is this: a reminder of our need to need. We are just a little weaker than we like to tell ourselves. But when we are weak, he is strong. And where we are broken, he pours out wholeness over us like a sacrifice, like joy, like love. And again and again and again I say: Let my heart form to the shape of all that grace. Let my spirit draw refreshment every day from that mercy-well that never runs dry.

NOTE: Anxiety is a very real struggle for many people, and I have struggled with it myself for many years. Counseling, prayer, devotion time, healthy habits, and sharing with family and friends have all contributed to managing stress that developed over time into a tendency toward anxiety. But since there is no one-size-fits-all cure, this post is not meant to be prescriptive in any way. Only know that if anxiety is a part of your experience, you are not alone in it. Help is available.