Enough.

I cried in the back of a cab tonight. It's been a long time since I did that.
I cried because today was the kind of day in which nothing "happened" even though it felt as if everything happened. In my work-life it did. In my life-life it did. Today felt like a marathon and it wouldn't let up. 
It was one day, a whopper of a day yes, but one day. A bad day does not equal a bad life.
I left work late, ran to a cab, and sat in traffic that hardly moved for fifteen minutes. I called Ben and we talked about our days and how much can change in one afternoon, in one email. And I cried. I cried because life will not stop and so many things are undecided and almost decided and not decided by us and I don't have time for it. I don't have energy or patience or forgiveness for it. I cried because I am tired and that is my constant.
I caught every red light. 
I missed my train.
I had to wait thirty-three minutes for the next one. 
Thirty-three minutes I could've spent with Eva. I cried because I miss so much and tonight, sitting in the back of a cab on a street where nothing moved was a smack-in-the face reminder. Time with her is gold and it's fleeting. 
It's never enough.
Even on the hard days when I feel like I have no energy and no patience and I'm not enough for her there's never enough time. 
In those thirty-three minutes I walked to a tiny sushi restaurant near my train station, a restaurant I went to during graduate school simply because it was a block from my class. I remember the twenty-six year-old who used to sit in that restaurant. A young woman so sad and lonely she went to crowded restaurants just to feel less alone, to feel a part of things. to hear noise and people talking with one another. Twenty-six, before Ben, before Eva, before marriage and parenthood. Before the hard parts and the heavy parts and the magic.
I cried because being a parent is hard. Being a step-parent is hard. I forget this. Because the bulk of my time with her, my life with her since she was fifteen months old has felt easy.
I know I was born to love this girl and her father. 
I cried because there will never be enough time. 

Q: G, why do you cry so much?

A: For the same reason I laugh so much. Because I'm paying attention.

-Glennon Doyle Melton