No, I don’t mean a pile of bodies moving around as if they are wooden rectangles carefully being removed and replaced one by one. I mean one body. One person, myself.

Upon awakening I gently slide a prayer sized puzzle piece to the right and hit my knees.  While I’m down there it’s not so tough. It’s the getting back up that is proving to be more difficult. As I place that piece up on top of my head my body already feels shakey.

Maybe today is the day it all comes crashing down, and after only one move.

No, we keep moving through the game. One small piece at a time. My next move is a tricky one.  It’s like when someone pulls just one of the blocks out, but not from the middle, from the end, so when you go to grab another one that tower has a real good chance of crumbling down. This is when I open the door as quietly as humanly possible, hoping for just five minutes of quiet time before someone is asking me for something. 

Bwahahahaha. 

Just kidding.  No such luck.  The sticking of my bedroom door, which I thought I fixed two months ago, wakes up my oldest.  Why is it that I can yell in my biggest voice for him to get his shoes on and he can’t hear me, but that damn door he can hear clear as a bell? 

As we walk out into the hallway I hear the baby stimming in his bed.  He is up. Of course he is.  He can’t sleep well either, except he doesn’t know to cry for me. That thought takes my breath away.  No time for that though.  Quickly I place this toddler shaped piece up on top the last one, and carefully we make our way down the stairs.

The tower is solid now, hardly wavering actually, while I’m dolling out the morning fruit, cereal, milk and TV shows. Usually they smile and laugh and kiss me. Usually they quickly remind me why I do not, have not, and cannot give up. They remind me that I have value.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were reaching over and straightening up my pieces just when I need it the most.  Not sure if that’s allowed as per the rule book, but that’s how this mama plays it.

I move throughout the day pulling out pieces here and there.  One for drop offs, one for work, one for the arrant anxiety attack in the middle of the day. Another one for pick-up, and dinner, and bed.

And another one still at they very end of the day. When they are all asleep, and I am back on my knees, saying thank you.  This is usually the last puzzle piece to move.  The tower is now seriously lacking support. Just one pinky brushing up against the wrong block and it’s all coming down.

We don’t have time for that.

No one wants to hear the roar of pieces scattering and shattering across the floor.

Most of all, I can never quite get the puzzle back into the box “just so”.

It’s been used.

Mangled.

Displaced.