Family Circus

A couple of years ago my husband took the kids and I to our favorite Mexican Restaurant. It was a Friday and no day of special importance. Towards the end of dinner he kept checking his watch. Very seldom can my husband surprise me. It seemed he had something up his sleeve, but he was doing a very good job playing the part of a nonchalant lazy Friday evening. When we left he took a different way home, well the opposite of home he was heading downtown. We lived close to the downtown tourist strip at that time so I was content and thought we were going to take a drive down Broadway. It is fun to drive through the heart of Nashville at night because it is always lit up and music is always flowing loudly downtown. However, he pulled into a parking garage and gave me and the kids one of my favorite surprises he's ever master minded (and he does surprise us a lot). He took us to the circus. At night. With front row seats. To the best most amazing circus act I've ever been to.

Perhaps it was even more magical because I had just previously spent every night the week before cuddled up in my bed enthralled and mystified by this book:

Perhaps it was so great cause I had never seen actual motorcycles in cages!

For him to take me to the circus and seat me on the front row (which I've never sat on at a circus) as a surprise AT NIGHT was the most fun exciting thing I can remember. It was like I finished an amazing book and you book lovers know how that feels and then while I was mourning the loss of being finished with the plot, he took me right inside of that book in real life. I can't even describe how pleasurable, entertaining, and fun that night was.

This story comes to mind as I face my life-A family circus.

Last night reminded me of the old comic strip The Family Circus.

Paul was grilling in the back yard and the steaks caught on fire while he had his tool box laid out in the grass of the backyard fixing W's soccer net and explaining to a very happy W what all the tools were for. Paul was instructing as I was flipping the flaming steaks. Meanwhile M runs out and says there's a strange man at the front door wearing a hat. Paul goes to see what that's about and after a couple of minutes I think maybe I should go check on Paul and the man with the hat in case the man with the hat is a mass murderer.

On my way I pass the oven that I am using to bake sweet potato fries and regular round potato fries and it smells funny. I never make it to check on the mass murderer because when I open the oven I am engulfed in smoke and see actual flames coming from the oven. Hmmmm....that's a first! The olive oil dripped off the edge of the baking sheet and started an actual fire! So I yell, "Paul I need you right now!!!!"

I don't know how he left the mass murderer who was actually a man selling weed and feed for our yard, but he got to the oven and had the flames out in like a second.

Pretty soon we had the window ledge cleared, all the windows open letting the amazing fall breeze in, a fan clearing the room of lingering smoke, and we were around a table eating broccoli, mushrooms, steak, and fries-nothing ended up burnt or ruined!

The funny thing is I actually enjoyed all the chaos. It was one of the best nights of my week. The excitement. The adventure. My family just all together with the windows up and the fall breeze flowing. The 4 of us around the table just laughing and talking and eating.

Honestly, most of the time it's not that easy dealing with the fires of life.


The next time Paul took us to the circus we couldn't afford to splurge on front row seats. It was a completely different act-no motorcycles in cages or bicycles on tightropes over our heads. We sat towards the middle of the huge Bridgestone arena, it wasn't a surprise, and I wasn't reading a magical book about a fantasy night circus.

It was still fun just not the same.

Timing is everything in life isn't it.

I ponder a lot what we have been through as a family of 4 being in this medical whirlwind. Only a couple of friends I am close to truly know what it's been like because they are living it too.

Med school, babies, young husband and wife footing the bill for school. Building a family while Paul studies day after day, year after year for the next test. For boards. For more boards. Moving, not having family with in a 500 mile radius. Moving again, then again. New jobs, new schools, new friends. Trying to keep contact with old friends. Juggling life, finances, debt. Looking forward to "what's next". Wondering "what's next"? Moving again!

It's all our choice and we have no regrets. But it is a lot like a roller coaster ride. When Paul studies, we all feel like we're studying. As he waits to take Boards...we're all waiting in our household. The stress for one is the stress for all. The waiting for one is waiting for us all. When he gets a new job, it feels like we all do.

It is a ride that has taken us to the most amazing places and through awesome experiences. An enjoyable and rewarding ride.

And then a ride that seems too long, too nauseating, too time consuming and leaves me wanting to get off!

I'm the type that likes to add whimsy whenever possible. Fun wherever it can be inserted.

And there are moments that are excruciating to get through. Moments in marriage, motherhood, in life. They're not fun adventures. They require patience. But life is like that. Seasonal.

But that's what makes it exciting. Not boring. And rewarding. The good with the bad. It's all part of the circus. The glamour of the elephants mixed with the smell of......well animals and what comes with them. That's the joy of the county fair. The rides and snow cones and fried oreos.....along with the.....nausea!

You take the highs with the lows of disappointment.

But no matter what. Above all else, you don't quit. Especially on a low. And you stick together. You let no outside forces ever come between what takes decades to build. And what no one can truly know better than those in it. A family.

A family Circus.

And I am buckled in and enjoying the ride. All of it.