If you’ve been keeping up with me, this week was rough. Oh who are we kidding, they’re ALL rough! 🙂 Today is a better day, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. Let me go back 24…

Emotionally destructive day. Questioning where I fit in and who I belong to and how I stack up in this crazy broken family we have. Emotional outbursts. Unresponsive at work. Just down right down, all day. I came home last night, very late as work went late and there was nothing I could do to motivate my team. There was nothing I could do to motivate me, let alone 25 of them! So we got out pretty late. I drove the hour and a half home without ever turning on my music. I just zoned out. At one point I realized I was confused as to which road I was on! Not that I was falling asleep or not paying attention, just not connected to the present in a normal way. I was safely connected to the road and my steering, but my thoughts were flipping past the days events. I walked in the door to find Peanut was sound asleep like a good little girl (She better be at 10PM!). Bacon gave me a hug hello and just smiled when I said, “I’m gonna go put on sweatpants.” I walked to the bedroom and found a surprise waiting for me.

The thing about this surprise is that it made me cry. I never let anyone take care of me. If you want to take care of me, you pretty much have to ninja your way in there, surprise me or catch me off guard, and just take control and do it. So to have someone just take charge and take care of me in a way that was taking-no-prisoners, was the “straw” so to speak on this overworked over-stressed exhausted camel.

It wasn’t the bubbles in the bath quietly popping and fizzing and emanating a soft sensual smell. It wasn’t the bucket, yes bucket, of my favorite beer on ice stacked on the foot stool next to the fizzing bubble bath. It wasn’t the 100 candles giving off a soft welcoming glow, lighting the room just enough so that I could read my book lovingly set by the bathtub. It wasn’t even the soft ocean sounds playing on the iPad propped up on the sink or the sign on the bathroom door declaring “Night spa”. I started to cry when I saw all of these things, to the point where my nose was so stuffy I couldn’t smell the spa smell anymore. It was after I relaxed in the warmth and quiet for a while. After I had enough time to actually get into my new book and start to attach to it. Once I had (I’ll admit) started in on my second beer. After I could start to feel myself let go of all of my self-judgment and frustration, my insecurities and unfounded fears. It was after all of this that I decided I was ready to get out and rejoin my family (well half of it anyway). And as I went to retrieve my sweatpants and sleepy shirt, lovingly folded and stacked on top of two fresh towels. As I dried myself off and thought, ah I’ll just go commando tonight. It wasn’t all of this swirled together in a little brief ball of love and care and affection in a way I can understand and relate to. No, it wasn’t all of these loving and thoughtful and carefully planned touches to make my evening relaxing that made me feel truly special and loved and taken care of.

It was clean underwear folded in the stack of towels and sweatpants that made me feel truly cared for. That of all these big shows of affection, I fell for the most basic need being thought of, and put out for me before I knew I needed it.

Sometimes I’m so good at all of this stuff. I’m so great at managing multiple schedules in multiple families. Controlling and overseeing a multi-milllion dollar project. Balancing emotions and outburst and inappropriate behavior. Planning meals, shopping for food, managing my own budget while saving for the future.  Stressing and worrying over a misspoken word or a poorly written email. I’m keeping up with everything on a couple of hours of sleep a night. Sometimes, I just need somebody to get my underwear before even realize I need it.