Another Week End

It's Friday again.  We made it through another week, school bus strike, cold weather, and all.  We used to go to karate on Fridays, but these days, we've taken to collapsing. It's the weekend, after all, right?

This particular Friday, I decided to shake things up.  Risky, I know, but sometimes you just have to.  And sometimes, despite the fact that you train your kids to speak their minds, you have to remind them that a family is not always a democracy.
 
I'll admit, it wasn't easy to get all three kids to Shabbat services.  But where there's a will, there's a way, so a bus ride later, we were there.  As two kids dozed on my arms, I drank in the familiar and unfamiliar music (nowhere but our temple is the music reminiscent of Broadway).  And I then I heard the words that would ring true in the moment and stick with me even after.  "This week is done. There's nothing you can do to change it.  And next week hasn't started, so you don't have to worry about it yet. Just be in the moment here, now."

As a person who is always juggling family schedules and trying to execute them, and attempting new challenges that don't necessarily work out, I am always both looking ahead and glancing back.  So, the invitation to let it all go, to look neither forward nor back, was practically earth-shattering. And while the feeling didn't necessarily last through the whole evening, for just a moment, I forgave myself for the week's failures. I let my mind stop racing about next week's challenges.  And I just appreciated the fact that children were sleeping on my arms.  Sleeping on my arms, but there.
 
I'm glad we had that moment, and that we had it together. It's the week's end, and it's a weekend.  This week is over. And next week will just have to wait.