I can’t sleep

My mind races from one thought to the next as if it’s running out of time, it does this all day and all night. The racing is just worse at night, my body wants sleep and my brain won’t listen.

Tonight’s thoughts lead to goals, what do I want out of life.

I have washed so many years unable to get out of my way, mourning something that no longer seems real, a memory I can barely conjure even on the best days.

I want to stop sounding like a broken record on goals I have spoken of for years. New Zealand, Seattle, Dublin, weight loss, marathons, children, oceans. It’s all the same year after year.

I want to live and breath while enjoying life versus just barely existing. I want to feel connected to my friends, my family, to a lover.

I want to know what it’s like to hear my child call me mama for the first time, to cross the finish line after 26.2 miles, to discover again what it feels like to be alive.

I can’t sleep knowing I am wasting my life.

At 14 I know Java’s days are limited. Each day she sleeps a little longer, her legs shake a little more each time she gets up. All the signs of her ending are there, they small and insignificant but I know one day soon they won’t be.

I watch how Brady lays next to her,
how he kisses her, looks for her when she is in another room. I wonder who will be more devastated when she passes away Brady or me?

I am doing my best to stop focusing so much of my life on work, as I finally recognized the negative impacts it was having on me in terms of health, social life, emotional well-being etc. I also noticed how protective of their time other people were, which for me was really the “light bulb moment’.

One of the guidelines I recently gave myself was no reading/sending emails on the weekend(or really late at night during the workweek), because you know it’s the weekend and no one wants to see work emails while they are trying to relax and enjoy their down time.

Fast forward to this weekend where I received a couple URGENT email requests on my phone, instead of dropping everything I was doing to answer and provide the needed updates, which in the past is my typical reaction,  I responded with “I usually do an hour or two of admin work on Sunday evenings to prepare for the upcoming week, I will include this in that time but will not be available before then.” #babysteps

Tomorrow I will place the call that will begin the adoption process of my future children.

I hope in the next 2-3 years to have my home filled with the laughter and noise and chaos of little ones.

My heart is already full, but I can’t wait for it to be overflowing.

Earlier this morning I mailed off my passport for renewal as I was approaching the ten year mark of September 29 2013.

Ten years. 

Looking back over those ten years I have realized just how much has happened between September 2003 and September 2013. 

I have lost four people I loved dearly, their bodies lowered into their final resting place or their ashes set free into the wild. 

All four of my childhood pups are gone: first Lewi, then Rex, then Miles, and finally Buddy as is Jackpot, the family cat. 

Jobs that were left and a career that was discovered when I took a giant leap of faith. A city that was left in haste, a house purchased that most days is home and some days a prison. 

A heart that broke that day in March,  and is still unwilling to let go and let love in again. 

Friends that were discovered and others I walked away from.  

More concerts and plane rides and miles in the car then I know what to do with. Hundreds of books that have been read. Hours of internet searching that yielded nothing. 

Weddings and babies and divorces and remarriages. 

The most important moment came just three days ago when my nephew was born. 

Ten years.