Self Discovery

I have recently discovered something about myself that I almost wish I hadn't. I have a problem. An addiction really. I'm addicted to activity. Any kind will do but helping others seems to work the best. You see if I'm not busy than I'm thinking. Thinking of all I should be doing now, could have done better before, want to do, need to do, have already missed, or will never be able to do.

Listing remodeling projects I dreamed of when we bought our home but have put on hold because I can't leave my children alone long enough to finish anything. Mapping out the perfect plan of attack for managing the errands I need to run with out anyone bursting into tears or breaking anything.

Thinking of how I've never had a close friend who really understood me. How those who have even the slightest concept of what I deal with daily are too busy struggling themselves to be bothered by me.

Thinking that even in a crowded room of 50 other women, wives, mothers, I feel alone. So as every other Sunday, I come home from church drained; physically, emotionally, spiritually. My head and my heart are hurting.

Today a phrase from a sacrament speaker has been locked in a recycling lap around my thoughts. "Have I endured enough?" The story was told of an elderly temple worker, crippled by osteoporosis, yet working diligently in the temple. Holding his head upright with one hand to relieve the strain on his neck, drinking his pureed lunch from a Mason jar, he asked another worker "Have I endured enough?"

If this poor man, spending his last pain filled breaths on Earth serving in the Lord's temple didn't feel he had done enough, how can I. And so I return from my Sunday meetings and throw myself back into action. Changing children out of church clothes, fixing dinner, setting out clothes for tomorrow, checking homework, prepping lunches, listening to voice-mail from work, and anything else I can find. Anything to stave off the thoughts of inadequacy, the worry of this week's doctor appointments, putting off the decision to home school or not, and fighting another battle with the school for not sending me all the proper paper work before summer.

Like any addiction, activity drowns out reality. That's why I read the newspaper while I eat. It releases my mind from the sound of A's coughing and twitching, S's continuous twisting and falling off his chair, M's random singing and non-stop chatter. And G's silence as he too sits thinking. That may be the worst part; knowing that I have passed this burden to him. Knowing that if only I'd recognized A's Asperger's & Tourette's sooner he could have gotten therapies that would have masked his now obvious symptoms. Knowing that if G hadn't needed cranial surgery at six months I wouldn't have become so panicked about every little thing. Knowing that if I'd had only one or two children, I would feel better able to cope, to keep up, to provide what they each need.

Yet I also know that they are all mine and were always meant to be mine. That no one else could understand them as well, sense their needs before they arise, or make any kind of sense out of their random collection of behaviors.

And so, here I sit in solitary confinement. Alone in the foyer of church with my 13 year old son, his head cradled in my lap as I rub his back. His coughing and twitching too much for even his own family to ignore sometimes. Separated from the rest because it's less painful than watching as other react to my boys. The well meant cough drops offered to A as he passes the sacrament; the other boys walking away from him as he talks about his latest Nintendo achievement. The comments from G's teacher that "he's not hiding behind the chair anymore;" waiting in the hall until the other kids are in class before escorting him from the silence of the bathroom into his class. Listening to S's three hour muttering of "I want to go home."

Have I endured enough?