A repost of another fave from several years ago. I think we all as humans wonder if it is all worth it. Here’s to realizing it is.

Wake up late because my alarm died.

Make breakfast for two boys who don’t eat a thing.

Later I’ll be hungry because I forgot to eat.

Run out the door to face a job I hate.

Run back in the door for the packages I need to mail on the way to the job I hate.

Run back out the door to jump into a frozen truck that I don’t have time to defrost.

Stop at the post office and wait in a long line to have my packages handled by a grim-faced government employee who hates his job more than I hate mine.

Jump back into my still-frozen truck and take way too many minutes to get out of the tiny post office parking lot because that truck is so dang big and I can’t see a thing out of those ice covered mirrors.

Jump on the freeway, and I gotta get to Kirkland in an hour because my customer needs to leave to another appointment soon, but the traffic’s so bad that it’s making a liar out of my GPS, and I wonder who was the idiot who neglected to put more freeways in this town?

Get to Kirkland and have to explain to a distraught customer why her kitchen is going to remain torn up through Christmas.

Back in my now partially thawed truck and gotta go to the bank to throw a small shovel load of dirt into the giant ditch that is currently my bank account, and I can’t figure out where to park my humungous rig at this place because the road is torn up and everything’s fenced off, so I park it in an alleyway and hope I can run fast enough in and out of the bank before someone else needs to get through.

Leaving the bank in my giant, partly frozen truck, I’m merging on the freeway, just thankful I am on the opposite side of traffic, and things are looking up because now I will head home, grab some lunch, and finally finish the other half of the Christmas lights that I started to hang on the front of the house over a week ago, and maybe I’ll even have time to visit my favorite coffee shop, and I’ll be able to do some writing.

Arrive at the storage lot to drop off the finally thawed work truck and pick up my own vehicle, but just as I am parking the work truck my boss calls and says I need to go to a job up in north Seattle, which is a heck of a lot closer to Kirkland – where I just was, than near home – where I am now, so CRAP, now I am backing the giant truck out of the lot, and there will be no lunch, no coffee shop writing session, and no finishing those confounded Christmas lights because someone up in north Seattle has a puddle of pooh water they need me to drive for an hour in my giant truck and suck up for them.

Get to the house in north Seattle, and my liar of a GPS took me the long way, but hey, at least I got to see the Christmas display at Macy’s, and I find out that there’s a plumber there making a repair right next to that puddle of pooh water that I am there to suck up, and I can’t do anything without getting in his way, so I vamp and vamp and pretend there are other things for me to do, and all the while I’m watching the clock because it’s getting awfully close to 2:30, and you know rush hour in Seattle starts right around 2:30, so if you’re driving through downtown much after three, you’re SCREWED buddy!

Plumber is finally finished, so I’m getting in there with my pooh water sucker upper, but my phone rings at me before I can turn on the equipment; it’s the wife calling from her car on her way home from work, and she’s wondering where I am and wants to know what I’ve been up to all day, and I say, “I don’t know. Driving, I guess.” She wants to know if I will be home in time to watch the 2-year-old while she takes the 4-year-old to swimming lessons because she hates having to chase the 2-year-old all over the place and making sure he doesn’t jump into the pool himself, and I say, “Sure! Long as I can get on the freeway before 3:30!” (What am I thinking??)

Finish sucking up the puddle of pooh water, and I start packing up my gear which takes four times longer to do than the actual pooh water sucking procedure took, partly because my giant work truck is sandwiched into a tiny Seattle easement, and I can barely squeeze between the truck and the house myself, much less when I am accompanied by a pooh sucker, and Oh man, is it 3:30 already?!

Driving toward the freeway, and Seattle traffic is hellish as ever; it takes three cycles of lights just to get onto the interchange at Mercer, and now I am crawling at just a hair over ten miles per hour because there was apparently a wreck here earlier, which I can’t see because it’s already been cleared, which begs the question of WHY ARE WE ALL STILL CRAWLING??!!

Making my way through south Seattle at just a hair over 30mph, and my phone rings at me; it is the wife wondering if I’ll be home in 15 minutes so she can avoid that whole situation with the 2-year-old and the chasing around at swimming lessons, and I say “No” because I know that even if my van could sprout giant eagle wings and fly me home from where I am, it would be a stretch, but as it is, I am stuck on this rolling concrete prison, and according to the radio, I’ve still got the pleasure of navigating through one more wreck between myself and home. “Fine” she says and hangs up the phone, and oh boy she’s pissed, but I can hardly blame her because her day’s probably been twice as bad as mine.

Fight and fight and fight traffic, and at one point one of the guys from work calls me and says, “Hey, can you cover me tonight?” and I roll my eyes as I hang up the phone on him. I decide to stop at McDonalds – that wondrous beacon of tantalizing, transfat goodness – to pick up Happy Meals for the kids, since it will be past their dinner time by the time they get home, and nobody is there to make dinner, so I am thinking ahead, which my wife will tell you I never remember to do, and just as I’m about to enter the drive-thru, the wife calls and asks where I am, and when I tell her, she says not to pick up McDonalds because she wants to pick it up instead, and oh boy, she sounds pissed, but I can hardly blame her because I know she’s had a worse day than me.

Get home, cleaned up, changed, wolf down a cinnamon roll because I’m hungry from not eating, and I holler at the dogs when they bark because the wife and kids are home with their happy meals, which they begin to gobble up with glee, and now it’s bath time because it’s getting late, and I know that’s for certain going to be on me because the chasing the 2-year-old around the pool thing has her ready to scream, so I get those two little rugrats scrubbed and shiny in record time, and I ignore the 2-year-old’s tears as he protests a premature removal from the tub; I dress him while I threaten sanctions against the 4-year-old if he doesn’t climb out of that tub immediately, and he’s gotta wear his Spiderman pj’s, since that’s what his brother is wearing, so I help him into his pj’s, and if you’ve ever had to put fresh pj’s on a child with wet skin, it is *@#%* frustrating, and the 2-year-old is in his room, cranking lullabies on his stereo, and as I walk in his room, I see him glowing a smile.

And he is dancing

And singing

He is breathtaking

And there I think

this is all

so

worth it