85 A.D.: The Chrysalis

chrys·a·lis (krĭs'ə-lĭs) n.: (1) a pupa, especially of a moth or butterfly, enclosed in a firm case or cocoon.  (2) a protected stage of development.

We all remember grade school science, and the remarkable journey of the caterpillar to the butterfly.  And then we became teenagers, and formed our own protective cocoons of locked bedrooms and overamplified music in a desparate attempt to contain the massive mind and body upheavals within.

If only our own pupa stages had ended with that definitive metamorphosis to adulthood, where we emerged confidently from our shells to say, "Here I am, world.  I'm me, and I rock."

Unfortunately, it's not so easy.

77 A.D.: You Gotta Start at the Bottom

When you're building a house, you can do all the planning you want - move a wall on a whim, add a doorway just for fun - but there comes a time when you just have to put pencils down and start building.  And when that time comes, you gotta start at the bottom.  You may have lofty visions of vaulted ceilings, but before all that you have to dig a hole and pour a foundation.  It's dirty, painful, and not at all sexy, and yet it's the difference between a house of rock and a house of cards.

Our family's foundation-building has been similar lately:  Sleep.  Eat.  Breathe.  Pray.  Lather-Rinse-Repeat.  (no, seriously, I'm trying to take more showers.)  Lost amidst the kids and the busy and the life is that you can't build a thing without a foundation that can sustain the weight of it all.  Going faster, ignoring the center while dancing on the edges, only works until the rains come, only works until you drown without even knowing why.

I'm tired of drowning.  Time to rebuild on dry land.