Feeling Amiss

It’d been a weird weekend. It hadn’t been a bad weekend by any definition of the word, for I had the chance to get some extra rest and I enjoyed time with both children at home and my husband too. I even had time to cuddle up with both pets. I knew how lucky I’d been. I’d gotten some work done and I took opportunities to watch a couple of movies too. I had gone out to breakfast and had watched my youngest play basketball, scoring 10 points in a close game. But something had felt unsettled within me over the past several days. “Maybe I am coming down with something?”, I thought. It was an odd feeling with an unknown cause. Something had simply felt amiss.

It’s true I had been stressed, but I wasn’t sure that my level of stress had been any higher than usual. Life gets busy and I’m used to juggling many things. Sure, there’d been a few headaches too, but a few motrin and an extra dose of caffeine seemed to have taken care of those.

I sensed I needed something. I turned to work, to music, to family, to television, to friends, and to writing, but I hadn’t found what I needed. Thinking I was suffering from sleep deprivation, I turned in early each night and in the afternoons, I napped. I picked up a magazine and a book, I played with the puppy, but something was eluding me. I browsed the web, even ordered a few things on sale hoping retail therapy might be the answer. I went to Mass, balanced my checkbook, and straightened out the house, but again, it hadn’t presented itself. I laughed and I cried but I’d failed to possess whatever it was that I needed.

So, instead of belaboring the issue on the last evening of the weekend, I decided to stop looking for whatever it was that was needed and to stop worrying over what seemed strange. I told myself I would simply take the next several hours before I turned in for the night and I’d be grateful to have them. Seeing the puppy at the door, I then headed outside into the cold night air.

The puppy ran out in front of me, happy to have company outside. I didn’t plan on staying long but not wanting to bother with a coat, I’d grabbed a shawl to wrap around my shoulders. Stepping out of the garage to the open air, I suddenly spotted the bright moon shining through the trees and as I often do in the summer’s sun, I impulsively took a seat on a dry patch of our driveway and looked up.

The moon was dazzling. The puppy ran into the woods and I stretched out on the driveway, avoiding the tracks of snow, and gazed up into the contrast of the illuminated orb against this dark winter night. The stillness of the world invited me to take a deep breath, to hold the beauty of the scene inside my lungs. I heard the puppy thrashing in the brush in the woods at the side of the house and I smiled. As cozy warm as it was inside our home, there was a feeling of exhilaration outside under the moonlit sky. I knew I couldn’t stay out all evening. I would eventually stand up and walk back inside and put myself to bed, but I didn’t rush...for in those moments, nothing felt amiss.