...tetris.

You know that game? Who doesn't is more to the point, I guess.

It's my life.

Not "it's my life" as in I live for it. But actually, it's precisely what my life feels like. Like I am at the controls as tiny, huge, mundane, unexpected, challenging, time consuming, frustrating, creative, complex, joyful, productive, repetitive, tender, juicy, .....tasks filter down into my life. It's my job to effeciently slot them in. As a matter of fact, as a mom, it's my job to do this for my whole family. Most days I feel like a pro. Assessing the task and slotting it in. Sometimes spinning it around or flipping it to make it fit and other times just watching as it drifts down and lands perfectly in it's place. All of it, a very sophisticated series of well timed moves.

And then suddenly...I make a wrong move. I wager what the next piece will be and it is unexpectedly malformed to fit in my puzzle. Or I shift over just one square too far and it gets hung up and blocks the route for all subsequent pieces. Or someone comes along and distracts me for a split second at a crucial moment. From that point on things just seem to log jamb and I might as well throw my hands up in the air. At that point it all feels about as sophisticated as a bar brawl.

I'm not sure that everyone knows that moms are doing this all the time on some conscious or sub-conscious level. I think we can make it all look so effortless that people don't see what's going on behind the curtain. The only time that people are aware of the tetris juggling act is when we log jamb and things are going terribly wrong. All the finesse and grace of months, weeks or days of expertly played moves go entirely unnoticed.

It's kinda like when someone pulls that piece out of the Jenga tower that causes the whole thing to wobble dreadfully..... Wait a minute. Now I am mixing my geeky game metaphors. Let's stick with Tetris. September has been one big log jamb....There is only one cure for that. A clean slate.