Coming home from a long day of driving to and fro left me spent. I walked through the garage door and saw the kids sitting at the counter with their aunt and felt super grateful for having her there to help with the after school routine. What happened next was a bit of a blur. I wanted to talk with my sister and we had been been playing phone tag all week. I decided to hide out intermittently from the girls to have a 1 1/2 hour conversation with her. Don't get me wrong I love talking with my sister but the little ones constantly kept interrupting me. I would go and hide out in the closet whispering in the phone and sure enough after 1.32 seconds I would be found out.
My irritation level was climbing and soon steam would be escaping from my ears. I wanted to just send them away. I then had a moment of awareness of my thoughts and decided to watch and observe these thoughts for a minute. Why was I so annoyed at the kids, they just wanted to spend time with me and wanted to be near. Even when I had moments alone to talk with her uninterrupted, Why wasn't I able to be fully present with my sister on the phone?...because I felt guilty for taking time away from the kids. All together that is where the irritation was coming from. In that moment I decided I needed to be fully present in one thing to end this stress and tension. I needed peace. So instead of trying to "multi-task" which by the way is impossible for me, I ended the call with my sissy and decided to be fully present with the kids. I didn't harbor any resentment toward their past actions of destroying the living room while I was on the phone or constantly berating me requests while I was trying to catch up with my sister. I decided to feel the warmth of the water when I was giving them their bath. Feel the textures of the clothes I was putting away while they dried off. Look at the warm light streaming into the room from their cool light fixture. My senses began to calm and the irritation of the night subsided. What previously seemed like their incessant chatter went through me like an energy wave, not hitting any wall of resistance. After bath time, we did a visual meditation to prepare for bed. I said a family prayer of gratitude and we looked at images from Hubble space telescope while we all sat on the floor with blankets.
