year 2017, week 32.

Change is this week’s constant

Monday

(Written in reflection on Wednesday)

Birth. In what was a surprising but not so unexpected entrance my wife delivered my son today. It was an exhausting and surreal experience that was all too familiar. For some reason I couldn’t remember many of the details of my daughters birth until they all started happening again. Then memories flooded back and mixed with the present reality and overwhelmed me. I cried the best cry.

Soren Mark Simenson was born at 4pm August 14, 2017.

Tuesday

(Written in reflection on Wednesday)

Transition. In the early morning light I stood with other nervous parents in the kindergarten playground and watched my daughter play. I was anticipating the school but she was blissfully unaware of that sound that will drive her through the next 13 years. When it rang she filed in line and was off. This kid loves routine which should do her well.

Back to the hospital then back to school then back to the hospital the finally just before midnight back home. Without help in between with my daughter this would be too much. But the hours and days keep coming. And the best way to get through all of this is to take each minute for what it is. Life will slow down again at some point. For now this is living.

Wednesday

(Written at 3am Thursday)

I’m not sure why I feel compelled to write now but I do so I am. I was surprised at my dedication to writing this week. It would be easy to wave off and start fresh on week 33 but here I am.

Where am I? I’m home. So is my wife and son. And my daughter and in laws. we had a nice home cooked meal for dinner too. Which I prepared with a few celebratory shots of Jack Daniel’s. I’m not a huge Jack drinker but it’s simplistic and understated which is why I bought it.

So much is going on that I am only experiencing through Twitter and Facebook instead of real human interactions. It is so odd to deal with all of it this way. Even my wife and I aren’t talking about that mess. Our conversations are about shitty diapers, car seat tests, and kindergarten. As they should be. We both agree on the sadness of all that is going on out there but right here is so pressing.

Thursday

Look at me. Awake and functioning at 8am! I had to drop off the kid at kindergarten so there was no rest for me. But life is good.

I have been making steady progress on book designs. I have concept and content laid out in one. Now I just need to shuffle things around to work out the sequencing and tempo. For the other I have some designs that are great examples of possibilities but there are decisions that need to be made and directions to take. We will see how things go. I somehow have ambition to work on them over the next week and half I am home. An hour or two at a time will be about all I have which will really let me reapproach my ideas with fresh eyes over and over.

Friday.

Change is constant for sure. I wrote that title for the week on Wednesday and every day since it has been a roller coaster of change. Drastic shifts in emotion, sleep, routine.

The best thing to do is step back and look at this all in context. “My world is crazy” and “am I really running on 3 hours of ‘sleep’?” Ha, that was just a six hour time span. The next six hours will be way different. Then it will change to something else.

Onward.