This is the first week of school.
The kids are gone, all but my Handsome. We are buddies.
Really?
Has it almost been a year since he came to live with us? Yes, on October 4th it will have been a year. It has most definitely taken this long for him to adjust to his new home and family, and us to adjust to him. He has been settled in now for several months, really comfortable and sleeping all night at about six. He seems so big, hardly the same boy that came to our front door with his mother and NaNa.
Jon asked me today if it will be hard for me to see him meet his biological mom and NaNa someday, I said no but I wonder if I am right. I am sure I will feel protective and hopeful that he deals with it well, but overall happiness for all involved. We have all worked in our own way to make him comfortable and stable.
I’ll let you know exactly how it feels if I am still blogging. (that’s a long time)
Who knows. I do have a pretty good idea of how it will feel after watching Jon meet his biological mom for the first time and sending back my niece after four years of raising her. We shall see.
Time marches on for all.
As fast as my kids entered school, one by one, they will leave. Unimaginable, and yes I am feeling old. In only 4 short years I will be considered “over the hill”. Does this mean I am standing on top right now? I kind of feels like it as I look back over the past and forward to the future. One thing is for sure, life has it’s own ideas of how things should go for each of us. We can decide what we want our life will look like, but we sure don’t hold the master plans.
As far as I can tell, we are all in this alone.
Don’t get me wrong, we surround ourselves with loved ones and share experiences. We build eternal bonds and dreams together, and we help each other out through ups and downs. But, at the end of the day we have to explain the inner workings of our mind to everyone else. Nobody has your own unique life experiences and processes them the exact same way. I have a loving husband, supportive family and friends but my mind is my own. My feelings are my own. My life is my own. There is something lonely about this, unnerving and even desperate sometimes.
There are stories I would love to tell you, that I never will. Things I would like to share, even feelings that are unexplainable. I was talking to my sister Camille today about depression. She said, “I don’t know how it feels to be depressed, I’ve been down or frustrated but not depressed.” I remember feeling that way at one point in time, and then it happened. I had postpartum depression after giving birth to Ella, and I didn’t even realize it for a long time after.
I had never felt it.
Now that I have, it will be easier recognized right? Is that good or bad. It’s neither here nor there but the point is, how do you explain hard things to other people? How do you share how depression feels, to someone that has never been depressed? How do you relate how it feels to loose a loved one to death, or simply not being able to see someone that you love knowing they are on the planet but unattainable? How do you explain feeling desperate for someone you love but not being able to help. How do you explain happiness to a friend, or daughter? Or anything for that matter. Understanding comes from being there yourself. Empathetic is one thing, full and total understanding comes from experience.
After reflecting on this for a few days, I have come to the realization that this is exactly why we need to be close to our Heavenly Father. I don’t care what religion you are or how you choose to worship or even if you worship, but I believe our maker *in my case* Jesus Christ and our Heavenly father know us individually. He understands our struggles and fully feels our pain and frustrations. He loves us, as we love our own children, but more perfectly. He doesn’t want us to feel abandoned, but surely he knows at some point we all will. That is why I love prayer. The power of prayer is unmeasurealbe but I believe it is real.
I sway up and down on my communication with my Heavenly Father, and right now feeling weak for whatever reason, I realize I need to work harder again.