there i was. solemnly bearing the heavy load of overwhelmth (not a word, but it should be). overwhelmed at my to-do list:

to-do
to-find
to-fix
to-file
to-put-away
to-dump
to-worry-about
to-buy-with-money-we-don't-have

my former excitement about meeting up for lunch with friends today turned to fear and dread. i can't go. i feel so low. buried.

i can't find what i need for pack meeting tonight and at every turn in my search i'm confronted with another pile of things i need to-do-something-about.

i want to go back to bed. too little sleep make all the rest of the tos feel even more heavy, more hopeless. i want to curl up in a ball and wake up to no more tos.

and then it happens.

i walk past the laundry basket brimming with to-files and i see a little brown corner of something. i tug at it and out comes the scout shirt i desperately needed so my youngest (you know, the one who also needs new church shoes, new regular shoes and a new church shirt and with whom i have been supposed to practicing math facts all summer) can get his arrow of light tonight and transition from blue to brown without once more being humiliated for not being offspring to one of those with-it moms who have a scout shirt for every child (neatly pressed and with all the requisite badges and bandelos and etc. neatly sewn on in perfect tiny stitches).

the phrase may be overused, but there are no other words.

i smile and send up a little thank-you prayer. i have walked past that basket hundreds of times. i've looked everywhere for the shirt, even dragging out the two adult shirts from my husband's closet to see if perhaps one of them is really the one i've been looking for.

i know it is a simple thing. but i also know it is not by accident. i needed some glimpse of light, some hope that somehow i could make my way through this.

sent, received and duly noted.

thank you.