My life is so full. That’s code for I’m blessed…and I’m tired. Yeah, I’m blessed and pretty tired and…of course there are times I’m overjoyed…and, honestly, overwhelmed. Actually, there are whole spans of time I’m just overwhelmed.

This is life.

It’s four blog posts in the last year and 3,000 photos to curate. It’s more adorable moments than I could reasonably hope for (or even imagine). It’s brilliant quotes, like Aliya saying, “I think I’ll just quit school.” and Mama asks, “What would you do instead?” to which she calmly replies, “I’ll sleep in and watch TV.”

It’s ballet performances and endless back-and-forths to dance class and then more performances. It’s tears for being bullied at school and doing independent study at home just to get through the last three weeks of the year with sanity intact. It’s your parents loving you so much you wish they wouldn’t.

Life is walks with a beautifully bouncing puppy but also having to hold my cat of 16 years at the vet when he takes his last breath. It’s having friends over to run through the sprinklers when it’s 95, having a sleepover, then those same two friends being mean the next day at school and making you cry.

Life is Principal’s Awards, third place, and no place. It’s wanting and getting then wanting something else. It’s more work than I think I can handle but then I get it done…and then it starts again.

Life is having a clear plan to move somewhere better, then questioning if I just haven’t accepted where I’m at. It’s swinging from hope to despair then back to hope then to indifference.

This is life.

There are no fairy tales or miracles or a booming voice from heaven laying it all out clearly. Life is zig-zags, falling short, and long shots. It’s perfectly planned failures and happy coincidences. It’s where I’m at, now.

This is it.