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For most, the quality of one’s life is measured from 5-9 and not the 9-5. Everyone asks about the 9-5, you went to school for it, you worked hard for it, you are identified by it, but how much happiness or joy you have will largely be compared between what you did 5-9 v. what you wanted to do between 5-9.

Freedom of 5-9 is everything. We are handcuffed, however, by so many things that can inhibit that freedom. Certain 9-5’s, like mine, follow you. You may have only the option of freedom but that option comes with severe consequences. You may take your freedom today but you know it is not coming tomorrow. If there is a way to make a solid living but truly be off when the bell rings, that’s a job worth doing.

A handful of times a year I’ll find myself home by 5:30 on a school night and it’ll be so filled with friends, laughter, and distraction that I will look up at the clock and it’ll be 8:45 and my heart is just so full. It is so much better than a night of work or even a night of netflix. It feels so good to go to bed on those days knowing you did 5-9 well.

Being thrust into adulting a toddler, under 2, has brought back the teather that is a “forced structure 5-9”. We find ourselves attacking 5-7 (until the toddler goes down) and then praying for a decompress from 7-9. The decompression truly only comes if all the older kids decide to do their part. There was a time, just a moment ago, that it felt like we would never get our 7-9 back, muchless a 5-9.

A week ago, we hit (what we hope to be) the bottom. A night of pure show from the Trauma. It was the nineth straight evening of storm, but this one was a tornado. It was public, it was borderline violent, it was exhausting. It involved sandbag carrying a humanbeing, it involved public shame, it took two parents, it took neighbor’s help, it took tears, and there were thougths that we would never live normally again.

Yet, one week later, we have had consecutive, manageable 7-9s. Even better than no outbursts are the “almost” outbursts that are met with self-dealing and self-soothing. It’s the little rays of light we needed following a dark crescendo that can only be composed by a child who has seen what she has seen. There is suddenly hope. In fact, there may even be an understanding that things are going to be ok. I have hope that this life is not permanent, but rather we are all just molting together and it’s going to hurt sometimes.

As we hit two months, it’s getting harder to remember what it was like to just have 2 kids. Like a mother forgetting how hard labor was, we are slowly forgetting the ease of just 4 people in a family. I would say on the scale of surviving to thriving, we are still surviving… but the thrive is no longer just a pipe dream.