I’m tired.  I’m almost always tired.  There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with me physiologically, I’m just tired.  Pooped.  Worn out.  Zonked.  There are probably quite a few reasons why I am tired, all acceptable but all related to the fact that I have three young children.  I wouldn’t not have my children for all the zing in all the Red Bull in the world. I’ll take tired if that is the price.  But if it’s not, can somebody please tell me how to not be so tired?  Don’t say more sleep, that is not one of the choices. 

I want to be able to have enough drive to really clean my house.  Get rid of all the dust bunnies, cob webs, and cat hair.  Go through all the stacks of papers, and find a place for everything.  No piles of stuff that doesn’t really have a home.  Organized neat closets that are easy to navigate.  Spotless toilets.  Socks all folded and in the appropriate drawers.  Nothing sticky on the floor, nothing yucky in the corners.  The very top shelves of my floor to ceiling shelves dusted.  

I want to be zippy enough to take out the sewing machine after the kids are asleep and sew some cute outfit for my daughter.  I enjoy sewing, or at least I think I do.  I used to.

I’d like to read a book just for fun, and not on the toilet.  I’d like to try a new recipe that is really hard and takes lots of time, just because. 

I want to go to the gym every day, ice skate at least twice a week, take walks in between.  I want to be able to drive to the mountains early in the morning, ski all day, and drive home that evening without falling asleep at the wheel.  I want to be young again.  Except that when I was young I didn’t have a home, husband, children, and I don’t want to go back to life without those things.  So I am going to have to struggle with old and tired, doing the best I can. 

I have a theory about aging.  The young suck the life out of you.  Literally.  My children grow and thrive by drawing the very essence of life out of me and my husband.  And they are welcome to it.  I would rather creak and ache and groan while watching my children discover the intricacies of life than remain young and strong all by myself.  Such is the love for our children that we would gladly lay down our lives for them, and in fact we do. 

Well, that’s my theory, anyway.  I know that isn’t the literal truth, but it does feel as though I am physically passing something (no, it’s not gas).  Sort of lends a quixotic, romantic flavor to aging. 

I haven’t worked out how that applies to childless people.  I mean, it doesn’t seem so idealistic to have your life drained by other people’s children.  It seems more gothic that way.  Frightening, really.  So maybe if you don’t have children, you age because the life simply evaporates with no new home to go to.  That’s a sad thought.  Maybe all the orphans and unloved children of the world receive that energy.  Yes, I like that.  I like to think that even if they are unaware of it, lonely children are the receptacles for the life energy of childless grownups from all over the world. 

It’s a credit to my graying hair and sagging butt that my children are so strong and exuberant.  With every ounce of love, I pass along a little more of my youth, until finally there will be no more, and my little boos will be all grown, feeding hungry young lives of their own offspring.  My spirit, forever strong, will gently leave this place of trial and worry, one last gust of life and love breathed upon those I leave behind, until they too, pass the essence of their physical being, and join me in watching the slow relay of life and loving.