Give me a moment

This morning I woke up and cried. Not for very long. Just long enough to feel the tears burn my eyes for a second. Not for any reasons in particular. Maybe because I caught a cold. Maybe because a cold means I have to stay away from my dad for days. Maybe because if I don't feel better I'll have to watch the Super Bowl for the first time without my dad. Maybe because I'm six months pregnant and tired and running myself a little ragged. Maybe because I didn't sleep last night and the kids decided seven am was late enough. Maybe because my husband is having a career choice crisis and has been working late too often leaving me with the kids and housework and everything else.

It wasn't until hours later that I had a clue what it was. It dawned on me that in the six months I have been pregnant it has been so incredibly hard. Losing a baby. Almost losing this one. Cancer. Canceling long awaited trips of a lifetime. Family drama. Normal life stress. And on and on.

Through almost all of it there has been no time to be fragile or weak. There has been no time to sit down and cry. No time to break down or have hormonal rants. No resting, no down time, minimal ability to let others take care of things. Ninety nine percent of the time it's fine. But that one percent I feel cheated. As if life has stolen this time from me. Time when I should be able to hand over some of my stress and work to others. Instead I find myself stifling the urge to complain. How can you complain when you know things could be so much worse? How can you whine about being tired when people around you are going through chemo? You can't and you don't.

But meanwhile I'm tired. I'm stressed. I want to take a nap. I want to go more than five minutes without having to pee. I want to sleep more than an hour at a time because either a four year old needs something or a baby won't stop dancing on my bladder.

It's probably not worth crying over. But maybe for just one second.