I answer: “I’ve got spirit, yes I do. I don’t give up for I have a spirit of life.”

If one could only see a day in my life, or rather, the spirit that helps me conquer…

“Ummm, let me check my schedule.” I look up into the distance as if pondering one of life’s difficult decisions. As if my life is so cramped and overloaded, I struggle to find time to enjoy it. As if I work a “normal” 40 hour-workweek and can barely manage to pick up the phone. As if my days are so busy, I eagerly await a day-off.

She knows my situation, though.

Kristen knows every day is a day-off for me.

Just then, I grin and say, rather slowly, “Yup, I’m available most any day!”

We both chuckle at such silliness, yet truthfulness, of the statement.

(I can’t hide it. It’s in my blood; to take the good with the bad. As if there is a silver-lining with every ordeal and aftermath: There is: it’s up to you to find it.)

Though kristen and I are a lot a like, as most sisters are, we are a lot different too. Though our facial features resemble one another, no doubt, our personalities and attitudes differ notably. Despite such distinction with my younger sister, we share the same blood along with my older brother. Being the middle child in the family makes me feel like a sandwich, where it is my duty to keep everyone together. When my older brother left for the Marine’s, then strayed from the family for years, it was my job to rein him back. When my younger sister moved away to school, though I was half-heartedly grateful at the time and felt I should have been the one to move out first, it was my job to make sure she came home.

Aside from these early childhood feelings of placement within the family, I always knew that someday we would each grow up and have lives of our own.

Through the course of our lives, we have all experienced our own setbacks and gains. It’s how we get back up, stand tall and continue our journey that counts.

From an early age, I’ve always dreamed of the person I would become. And when that future-person was no longer achievable, I was forced to settle, in my mind, on someone less: someone who can’t work a “regular,” or “normal” job. Coming to grips with this reality has taken its toll.

Though now, that someone who can’t work a “normal” 40 hour-workweek has become someone who has the time to devote to other more impressing things in life. The more impressing things in my life that I’m talking about refer to the laundry, the dishes, the floor, the bathroom, the animals and the grocery shopping. Only then, when everything has been cleaned and cared for, can life operate.

From student, to wife, to mother, to Stay At Home Mom, the necessities in my life are the same, and should be the same for everyone regardless of age, gender, race and ethnicity (I have to put that in there to be politically correct).

We all need someone, or something, to look up to; to admire, to persevere.

Whether the reasoning for your battle is your independence, family or morals, may you find the spirit to conquer the molehills and mountains in 2024 and always.