A Work in Progress

     The sun sets. The sun rises again.  I keep waking up, so I keep getting more chances to get it right.  I'm going to go ahead and say I'm doing a good enough job, even though the list of all that I'm failing at is insanely long, like waiting at the DMV long.   Today, though, I'm going to recognize that I'm doing my best and it's been good enough. The laundry is caught up.  The dogs and the boys have all been fed regularly.  I've met my work deadlines. I've prepped the bathrooms for a way-overdue repainting. I've even managed to remain mindful of some important self-care business:  drinking plenty of water, eating lots of veggies, and getting outside.  It's good enough, indeed.

     I had a truly wonderful return to the Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge this week.  I was in Newport on business and spent my lunch hour walking the trails.  As soon as I took the first bend, I came upon a deer enjoying a snack.  She didn't startle.  She must have been very hungry, because she never stopped eating. I probably could have pet her if I were so bold.  It was an astonishing surprise. I stayed with her for about five minutes, before my work responsibilities drove me further down the trail.

Just past my deer, where the thicket thins and there is a clear view of the rocky shoreline, I saw a group of the harlequin sea ducks that winter in Narragansett Bay. This band of quirky looking flightless, diving water fowl draws birders from all over to the Rhode Island coast every January.  That this is just an ordinary part of my day makes me feel blessed. In fact, it is these ordinary moments--a walk at a local wildlife preserve, picking out paint for the bathrooms, playing keep away with the dogs and my laundry (especially socks, the dogs LOVE to steal socks)--that make the challenges manageable and the worries bearable.

     Thing 2 is out of the hospital, but not out of the woods.  Every day I drive him back to the hospital for some intensive outpatient supports.  That he's so actively engaged in his own treatment makes me hopeful.  That he's negotiated some very difficult situations since being home, including facing the issue that triggered the dangerous swing from manic to depressed, makes me proud.  If you ask him how he's doing, he's likely to respond, "I'm a work in progress."  And it's the truth.  Aren't we all?