I feel as though I race through most days. Trying to keep the home fires burning and yet keeping them from bringing the house down. It’s diapers, laundry (or in our case, diaper laundry), dishes, cooking meals. I feel like I’m in a constant race against the clock to try and get a few things done that aren’t just maintenance tasks, to have something permanent to show for my hours of hard work. The days and nights go slowly but the weeks fly buy. August, September, October, when last I remembered it was only July. Yet I feel as though I’ve gone no where. Another month down, kids a little bigger, their clothes a little smaller, the budget a little tighter as we try to break even at the end of the year, but nothing else seems to have changed. I swear I found my first gray hair the other day. Am I losing the race against time and in the process watching my life waste away in piles of unfolded laundry? I can barely spare a moment to shower. Even my nights are no longer my own now that my son’s night waking and night feedings have returned. I look at the expanse of weeks before me feeling as though there is no end in site. I see the runners up ahead, many of them bursting into sprints as they head for the next mile marker and I feel as though I must have made a wrong turn. Didn’t I already do this part? Haven’t I been here before?

Oh God, no matter how long it takes me and where I finish in the grand scheme of the cosmos, let me finish well.