Feet.

So this morning, in the interest of staying busy before I went to work, we took Eva for a quick trip to the outer space play area at a local mall. She's walking, but is still pretty tentative, so I held onto her finger as she toddled from foamcore planet to foamcore planet and tried to climb Saturn's ring.

The largest piece in the play area is a long, low-to-the-ground plastic space shuttle, complete with a talking command center and two little tunnels making up the body of the shuttle. "Tunnel!" she exclaimed, recognizing this feature from a local playground we recently discovered, and she crawled in and out of both them several times.

When it was time to go, I told her to say goodbye to the play area and the people and was about to pop her in the stroller when she asked to visit the tunnels one more time.

I went over with her and stood nearby, and then squatted to look inside and watch her crawl through. The opening was small and she took up much of it, but most striking was that the light at the end of the first tunnel was crowded with the legs of kids.

"Feet," Eva said solemnly, looking over her shoulder at me, and resuming her slow crawl to the other end.

A little bit later I was brushing my teeth when I suddenly got it. I have total tunnel vision with this whole job thing, and all I see is feet. Sure-- it's feet that it's taken so long, and it's feet that we're so nervous about the outcome of this latest potential opportunity, and it's rank-ass, nasty feet to think about someone with a Ph.d having to go back to school, but then again...it's just feet. And what I see at the end of the tunnel is just one tiny part of the scope of my life.

Tunnel vision.

I should mention that an e-mail exchange with a friend helped put part of this into perspective. She made the excellent point in a gentle, offhand way that everyone has frustrations, and shared some of hers. And I was totally with her and I felt frustrated for her too and then I sat back and was kind of like, "Ohhhh".....because her frustrations mean no less than my frustrations do. (And I hope it's not weird for her to read about herself in the anonymous third person here, but since she's one of the maybe ten people that ever stop by here, I doubt she'll mind too much.)

This realization may seem obvious to the more enlightened among you. I probably would have told you before today that it was obvious to me, but I didn't really get it. Realizing it today was the equivalent of a ton of bricks being lifted off my back-- an actual, physical sense of feeling lighter, or just a whole hell of a lot better all of a sudden.

I've had trouble lately coming to grips with the fact that some of the things I want out of life have come so easily to others I know. I don't think I'm unique or particularly "bad" for succumbing to jealousy, but being unable to crawl out of it was turning me into the kind of person who was completely unable to see past the end of her own nose. (I know, I know-- the cliches abound today, but just bear with me.) There was a part of my brain dutifully going through each day highlighting the good things about my life, and our situation as a family, just sort of listing the things we take for granted ad nauseum, but it was just elevator music compared to the other stuff going on in there. I mean, when Gwar is having a party in your amygdala, the voice of reason is about as effective as George McFly. At least, pre-Biff bashing.

And so, while my emotions flung poo at my reasoning's attempts to snap the heck out of it already, I became a bitter, nasty person with a shriveled frame and a wart at the end of my nose. I shook my fist at the sun, and little blue birds trembled in terror whenever I entered the thicket.

And then there was Eva, as there so often is. Already the steady routines of her day to day were providing me with some respite from the pity party, but that one little glimpse at the world from her angle gave me enormous insight into my own ridiculousness. And those e-mails helped to clarify that it was, in fact, tunnel vision, and not some intergalactic conspiracy to make sure that out of everyone on the planet, OUR family should never get ANTHING that it wants, EVER. *pouty lip*

So, yeah. Still waiting, but not as crazy. A little embarrassed, but mostly just glad to be feeling better about things. And super-thankful for my blog readers-- all ten of you. :')