Where do I even begin to get back into this? It’s been months since my hands have touched a keyboard to give my voice a place to land. I’ve been holding so much internally while carrying the weight of far more than I could have imagined the last several months. But, I’m here. I showed up. My hands are typing, so that has to mean something. Am I ready to get back into the full swing of things with my writing? Probably not. But maybe if I keep going it will pull me back in and remind me of why I started writing in the first place.

Let me start by going back a bit. I found out I was pregnant with my third child about ten months ago. As exciting as it was, it was not planned and we were not prepared at all. We were just getting our footing with our (at the time) three and one year old. But alas, this baby was already coming. Before we knew it the pregnancy flew by. I guess that makes sense when you’re constantly nauseous while simultaneously settling into a new house and routine with two young children…

My emotional, physical, and creative energy were depleted for the entirety of my pregnancy. And then the unexpected loss of my father hit me like a brick. He was in prison when it happened, so we weren’t really close as adults, but I have a whole childhood of memories tied to him. Sometimes grief isn’t as neat and tidy as we’d expect or hope. I won’t divulge into that here. I’ll save that for therapy, but it did add another thick layer of stress to an already maxed out nervous system at thirty-nine weeks pregnant. Fast forward not one, but two weeks later, our third baby was born at a whopping TEN POUNDS FIVE OUNCES. And to think… I wanted a VBAC… Ha!

This last month has been newborn bliss mixed with a bit of toddler chaos, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. And that brings us back to …doe a deer a female dear… Just kidding. But it does pull us back to where we are now, hands on the keyboard trying to find the words to express what my mind has trouble holding.

When I started writing this I was inspired by a line-art design I traced from a picture my husband captured of my two oldest holding my hand while my other hand held the stroller with the newborn. They both wanted to hold a hand and had to settle for sharing the same hand but different fingers. I thought the premise would be just about them and the growth of our family. But truthfully, there’s so much more to it than just not enough hands for them. There’s something about life in general and capacity constantly colliding. The expectation of performance and health against the harsh reality of fatigue and bandwidth. It’s unfair, ironic really, how much life expects of us when we’re so busy just trying to survive life itself.

It’s the moment capacity and reality collide. I think everyone hits that explosion eventually, some people more than once. I think moms especially, probably hit that moment multiple times per day. The thing is, most people don’t even realize they’re close to capacity until it starts to overflow, wreaking havoc in our lives and probably spilling into those around us too.

I wish I knew how to resolve this. Like maybe there’s some way to tie it all up neatly with a cute little bow… But frankly, I’m still sitting in the middle of my third collision today, so if anyone figures out the recipe, equation, or formula, help a tired mama out!

Anyway, the last week or so, I’ve finally been finding pieces of my creative energy again, and maybe a bit of my sanity too. The moments are brief, but between feeding the baby, chasing the toddler, and homeschooling the preschooler, they’re just enough to gravitate me back to my laptop. So while my hands are full, my heart definitely is also.

I realized after finishing that paragraph that the last line stuck out to me. At first, I couldn’t decide if the sentence even made sense. But I think it does; the cadence is actually familiar to me. Which is probably why I typed it in the first place. It comes from Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Which makes me think that maybe it’s not about how much we are holding, but the content being held…

Wait, is that it? Is that the bow I was looking for? I think it might be.