Bless you, Mama!

I have been seriously negligent in writing for my blog these past two months and I had been feeling really guilty. In fact I had been feeling guilty a lot recently – about what I wasn’t getting done, lists getting longer, tasks not done. It seemed like those months when supposedly nothing happens and we all hibernate, were in fact months when everything happened, and I was feeling tired, crotchety and unproductive. I last wrote about family visiting from Ireland, which was followed by an intense workshop for my coaching accreditation, followed by intense preparations in organizing the Silent Auction for the Ireland Network event, followed by a bout of bronchitis which knocked me for six!

Then I remembered, this is what I do every winter. I try to plough through these winter months, packing them with activities to try to forget that it’s bitterly cold outside and that the sun hasn’t broken through the clouds in fifteen days, which is my absolute limit for lack of sunshine. I get irritable and tired, and wonder why I am not accomplishing anything.

Then I inevitably get sick, the sick where I can’t do what I want to do. I feel wasteful and unproductive. I can’t sleep because I’m coughing so much. I can’t speak because it hurts. I have to cancel appointments and I realize that I’m hitting a wall.

I hit that wall last Friday, when after a week without sleep, without my voice and apparently without sufficient oxygen, I gave up and went to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor because I always feel like such a hypochondriac. It’s February and I have a cold, well whoopdedoo! But apparently it was more than a cold, and it was time for antibiotics. I went home Friday annoyed with myself, wondering how long it would take to get better and how I could be any less productive.

Complaining later that day to my coach, he suggested that maybe this would be a good time to relax. He even assigned me fun and relaxation for my homework. I had to sit down and watch a funny movie with my husband. So I did (because you don’t say no to your coach)! I relaxed, I laughed, and I spent time with my husband, doing nothing. I finally read a beautifully written book I had bought some time ago and put at the bottom of the pile because it wasn’t on my coaching reading list. I flicked through some magazines piling up on the coffee table, begging to be read. It all felt good, but I still felt guilty.

Later that day, I was reading to my two year old daughter when I started into one of my coughing episodes. When I stopped, my beautiful little girl looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said in the sweetest little voice, “Bless you, Mama”.

I’ll never forget the look of love on her face and her obvious pride in knowing what to say. It was then that I realized how blessed I really was. I may not have ticked anything off the “To Do” list, but I had achieved so much more. I had spent time with my husband, I had enjoyed getting lost in a beautifully written book, and I had a moment with my daughter that taught me that not only is she now really communicating with me, but she also really cares about me. What wonderful, unforgettable moments. And I had been feeling guilty about what I wasn’t doing!