I have no idea what I’m doing. We don’t get to know. No matter the Sure Things, even those have shaky parts of mystery and that is the answer: Trust the path with its shards of glass keep going forgive yourself. Maybe 40 is just a moment to see you can trust yourself and your unknowns even when you cannot, to know and not know and let it be. And maybe 40 is time to forgive yourself for every big and little thing that led to pretending or mistakes or ego or having to completely start over again. Again. We were just kids, trying to figure it out. Remember the glaring confusion in that little you looking up and around with your wonder eyes. Remember how confusing the ways of the world and adults seemed to be. You were right. You knew there is very little sense here. There is a deafening strife […]
photo via google images via bradytoops.com I posted a link to a short article about Brady Toops being on The Bachelorette on Facebook a couple of days ago. What I said in that post was, “I used to take care of him in the church nursery. That is all.” My FB friends and I were all humored by that. It’s funny. In that way that makes you feel really really old… But I want to tell you about some other things that have nothing (and then maybe everything) to do with Brady being on The Bachelorette. I want to tell you about community, courage and support. The people I’ve talked to around this place where Brady grew up are excited about his career in music, his talent, and they support him. You might expect criticism from way up here–about Brady’s choice to do a reality TV show–but that hasn’t seemed to be the case. I’m sure some locals are judging this […]
I have at least one new idea every day, a creative flow of light bulbs dancing behind my eyes. Some are fleeting thoughts and some stick around like breath. I have no good way of knowing for certain which ideas are the best to pursue, or how to find the time to pursue them. Life has not allowed for pursuing anything other than the time to change a load of laundry, and jumping in the good ol’ minivan for the next thing, mostly medical things, and we keep going past the time for ideas. I have learned to be okay with this. The time will come. It will. On this particular morning, the house is buzzing with the sound of the furnace, sadly, in May. It got cold last night. I fought the good fight, to keep the furnace off and I lost. That actually meant I won because I stopped shivering. Our guinea pig, […]
While I was talking to Elsie about why she didn’t need cereal, since she had just eaten two pieces of toast and a bowl of oatmeal and we needed to get out the door, Asher was saying Watch this, watch this! He swung one foot forward and moved it as fast as he could back and forth, like a dance. Then he switched feet and kicked out the other, throwing it from side to side. Look how fast I can do that, Mommy! Yes, sweetie, that’s the fastest foot-work I’ve ever seen… But he was already interrupting me to ask me to cut out something he had just drawn. Can you get the scissors? I’m terrible at cutting along the lines and I need it! It’s for Daddy’s birthday! So I stopped and started searching for the scissors and asked Miles if he could please for the love of all things holy get his […]
Elsie got sick over the weekend, just slightly sick, but enough for the cardiologist to say it’s best to wait on the heart procedure until she is fully healthy. Of course, I said, while my heart dropped because yes, I do just want it to be fixed. Now Already Yesterday. That’s how it is with your kids, right? Wholeness, that’s what we want for them in every way. Asher has been feeling some unique shunt-related symptoms as well. So we watch and wait and plan a trip to the big city just in case we need to take it. To explain what this is like is impossible. Hydrocephalus can be a mysterious, baffling, and cunning life-taker. That’s just the truth. It is the truth of many conditions and diseases and the truth of life. Slippery. Uncontrolled. When these three kiddos are with their daddy, and I’m working, I still think about all of […]
