The Little Dutch Boy is Short a Few Fingers

I haven’t posted here in a while.  I’d like it to say it is because life got in the way, and in a way I guess that’s true.  Problems at work, financial issues, running injuries, the start of school, coaching retirement, no time, no money have all led to no drive. 

I sat down this morning to a breakfast designed for someone who has given up on fitness entirely and considered the fact that I hadn’t written in a while.  A few months ago, I had ideas a plenty but lately, it seems that the well has run dry. 

I considered a couple of ideas, but they seemed to be of the ‘mailing it in’ variety.  So here is what I have come up with, ladies.  The point of this blog is to give you three girls little lessons to grab onto and maybe apply to your lives later.  We’ve talked soccer and boys and running and school and pierced ears and cell phones and how much mommy and daddy love you.  We’ve talked about growing up, bathroom jokes, heroes and villains and the Crisco incident.  For the most part it’s been light and for the most part it’s been optimistic. 

Today, maybe not so much.

Today speaks more towards why daddy’s temper may be a little shorter and treats get a little fewer and further between.  I’ve always believed that life works in little changes, that the things that will change the world appear on the back page of the newspaper, not the front.  I believe that life isn’t about wholesale changes, it’s about small, incremental increases in happiness.  At the same time, life doesn’t usually deal haymakers, it deals tons of jabs, the death of a thousand cuts.  Life requires monitoring because the tide can change without notice and the incremental growth can turn into a slow, barely noticeable slide. 

I think that’s what has happened to me.  It’s a bastard version of the Little Dutch Boy.  If life is the dam, I saw a leak with soccer starting, insert finger, then plantar fasciitis, insert another, school, work, money, time, finger, finger, finger, thumb.  Before I noticed, I was playing a monster game of Twister and I was out of left feet.  It came to a head last night, my wife asked about fixing a leaky kitchen sink and I was out of proverbial fingers. 

I needn’t go into the discussion, but suffice it to say that mountains were made of molehills.  I think, as life goes, soccer practice and homework and not enough hours in the day are the finger sized holes in the dam, but when relationships get chippy and communication breaks down, that is the cracks in the foundation of it. 

So here’s the lesson, ladies, keep an eye on the dam, fix it with your own hands when you can, but remember that this isn’t your dam, it’s your whole families.  That means two things, first, ask for help.  You have a whole family wanting you to be happy, if the holes get to be too much, ask for a hand.  The second, and this one is harder, watch to make sure your family isn’t plugging up too much themselves.  Be willing to lend a hand even if someone isn’t asking.  Frankly, it’s more important than you know.

Life is full of ups and downs.  I could always write poop jokes and threatening the lives of potential boyfriends, but it would be disingenuous to only write when the world is great.  Anyone can thrive when the world is all about finished marathons and three goal games, the test is staying together when the mortgage is late and the math homework is too hard. 

So for today, the sink isn’t leaking anymore but the still dam is. Life isn’t perfect but it’ll get better.