just breathe

You know that feeling, when you're swimming, underwater. When you know just how much breath you have left to keep you submerged. When you think, I can hold it a bit longer.. just a bit longer.. until you know you can't. Then you push off the sand or the little blue, square tiles, and rush to the surface, face tilted to the sky.

Those few seconds between knowing you should have surfaced and thinking you could make it a bit longer - when your breath has run out and your chest is tight, gasping for air the second you break the surface.

I plod along, attending to chores, to the needs of my children, the ordinariness of my day. And then out of nowhere, a succession of moments - a domino effect - and my breath is taken, in just a fraction of an afternoon; I'm struggling to breathe, to concentrate, to focus. I overflow.

There are plans, big ones. Ones that see me focusing on six months from now, far away. Far away from wintery grey skies and another school run in the rain. Another ordinary conversation I'm sure I had yesterday. And the day before that..

The bad days are here to remind us how good the really good days are. To keep us on the right track. To remind us what we're doing and why we're doing it. To remind us we can't have extraordinary without ordinary.

Just keep breathing..