Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

Lately I have not felt at peace.  Stress has been bubbling up in my chest.  It furrows my brow and causes a ringing in my ears.  My body has been telling me to pay attention to the fact that something is out of balance.  I have taken a leaf from Stuart Smalley's book.  Since I cannot practice hours of meaningful, deep, quiet meditation.  I settle for moments of silent affirmation.  My mind tells the rest of me, "You are patient.  You are loving.  You are blessed.  You are peaceful."  I pause and repeat such phrases silently in my head even when I do not believe them, even as chaos erupts all around me.  Sometimes before I fall asleep, I manage to affirm, "My dreams bring me clarity." And lately my dreams have been speaking to me, obediently responding to my request.  Sometimes dreams appear to be meaningless mishmashes of nonsense, but lately I have on occasion awoken from my sleep as...

This morning in the intervals between punching the snooze button on my alarm clock, I dreamed.  I dreamed that I had taken Sophie to school, and was at the doctor's office with Emma but realized that I had left Lili at home alone in bed sleeping.  My dream self was all, "OH JUNK!"  My dream self was racing home, certain that she had woken up and crawled off of the bed and broken her arm or something.  My dream self never could manage to get home because of that doggone alarm which insisted on beeping every nine minutes. This was most certainly a dream scenario.  I have never actually forgotten one of my children, but there is an art to managing all of them, particularly when someone is unwell.  I'm not sure I have mastered this art yet.  When I was talking to my mom last night, I heard myself say (something like), "The difference between two and three children is the difference between busy and hectic."  I'm pretty sure that's not...