Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

If my wife expected a relaxing Mother’s Day morning, she was sorely mistaken.

I went to bed last night shivering and woke up in the middle of the night to find myself drenched in sweat. Getting up this morning, I had a pounding dehydration headache and was exhausted from the less-than-restful slumber. Mommy was not served coffee and breakfast in bed this morning.

I felt much better by the afternoon and played outside with the kids for a few hours while she had some time to drink champagne and go shopping with her mom.

If nothing else, it’s indicative of the life we generally lead right now. We both got promoted this past year, and while the extra compensation is great, its more taxing on our energy. It usually seems like one of us is always on the hardcore grind.

So it goes.

It’s only going to more complicated. Our kids are still too young for sports and extracurricular hobbies. Greater and greater demands will be placed upon our time, attention, and resources.

Sometimes it already feels like we’re slow dancing in a burning room.

That as the world got crazy around us, we got stronger and more focused. We leaned into what gave us joy and moved us towards self-actualization; that top echelon of Maslow’s hierarchy.

Maybe Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung was right when he said, “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside awakes.”

Maybe we should all quit dreaming. Maybe we should drop the charade. Maybe we should wake the hell up and get back to work on building that life we keep dreaming about.

Are you up yet?