blissfully joyful

the tornado feels like a lifetime ago. with the kind of week we had coming...it was fitting that it started that way i guess.

on wednesday matt began comprehensive exams that lasted until this past monday. grueling tests all right on top of each other. i have never seen my husband put his head down and plow like that before. it's really been the whole month of october. the intensity of it, the timing and deadlines. the do-or-die mentality.

matt said i was carrying his stress too much. but i couldn't help it. each morning i felt suffocated with the pressure of what he was about to do. on friday, i just couldn't hold it together anymore. it was (what he thought would be) the hardest of the tests and as i watched the clock tick i felt myself beginning to break.

the kids had started some music and were having a dance party together. all happy, all distracted for the moment. so i took the opportunity to go in my room and have a good cry. and boy did it feel good.

as i finished and was composing myself, i noticed the music was a little louder, the song a little faster. when i walked back onto the scene i found the two older kids stripped down to absolutely nothing and sophia in the middle of them, pointer fingers up, pumping the air.

i stared in disbelief and then felt my heart get lighter. the music shook the air, their faces and bodies were so joyful. blissfully joyful. and i thought of their dad, working his guts out at that moment, their mom crying her guts out -- and them -- having no idea.

it's why we remember childhood so fondly. no worries, no cares. it's not because there was no stress. it was there. but we were unaware, blissfully unaware. dancing around naked to our hearts content.

the tests are over, and while we don't have the grades to know officially that matt passed, we feel hopeful. i would say it's safe to say we're basking in each moment together. thankful for 'post comprehensive exam life'.