Predictably...

...things seemed to get better around here just as soon as I started to act like the third teen/toddler in the family. Last night had all of us either in tears or on the verge, and I decided, yes, I set my chin, they needed to be sent to boarding school. And not a moment to waste.

By midday today, we'd all said our apologies, and we could be regular again. Not perfect (we're seldom perfect, anyway), but regular: human, and forgiving and kind and grumpy and funny and tired and generous.

. . . . .

Those who know me on Facebook will think I've gone around the bend with Dylan Thomas this week. But one of Annie's erudite friends, Ryan, needed to be tutored on the difference between the mis-use of Thomas in a movie script and the real thing, and the poem tied in so well with what I've been feeling about my own growing up lately, it's just stuck. Repeating bits over and over in the back of my mind.

It's a short poem, easy to read, and great for those middle aged days when you can't find your glasses and you notice that your left eyelid is drooping a bit more than last week and there are gray hairs sprouting from your CHIN, for God's sake. [As silly as that last sentence was, this poem actually makes me cry about every third time I read it.]

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.