heart connections

 

i told her that every time we see each other

our hearts stretch out to make room for our newness

and i remind her that tears are so okay

and that i cry when i say goodbye as well.

i talk about how our hearts get that crushed in feeling when

it is time to say goodbye again 

and that while that feels really yucky,

the feeling we had when we saw each other

again was the feeling to hold tight to.

 

 our love for each other is immense.

i am not sure if there is a better word

and while she lives there and i live here

and she is young and i am old

those facts matter none.

we love each other.

 hello's and goodbye's

the reality of our lives is often harder than we wish for

but it is not an excuse or a reason

 to not continue to forge strong connections.

connections that are made deep in the heart withstand much.

she is not the only one.

she is one of a sacred few whom i hold closer 

than i can even sometimes understand

and  while not all of them are in the little's category, 

but i am blessed with more than a few tiny kindred

 i am so grateful that the scars on my heart

are not so deep and so wide that there is no room for such unabashed loving of each other.

the young ones in my life teach me that.

each encounter i have with them i am reminded that they do not hold grudges,

or forget that i haven't been around much lately.

they just pick up right where we were before

and we carry on.

 

this one and i shared our own reunion today

and we squeezed tight and chattered away about all that had happened

while we were apart.

she whispered words of love and affection,

telling me how she missed me, how sweet i am, how the "countdown chain" was finished

and i thought to myself,

"out of the mouths of babes comes great affection"

 why has it become so hard as grownups to shower love upon each other,

to tell one another how we feel, how we love them, how they make our hearts sing,

how we feel empty when we are apart.

if we soak up this innocent love offered up by our little's,

surely we could be brave enough to share our love with the big ones we cherish in our lives.

share your heart, friends. share your heart.

send a note, make a FB post, phone someone up.

spread heart connections.

like they do.

it feels so good.

 

 

 

I forgot i could do that.

I forgot i could kick butt if necessary.
I forgot that I could lean on myself instead of others if I needed to.
I forgot that I could say hard things with grace, love amd humor, and not fall apart afterwards!
I forgot that working 10-12 hour days is excruciatingly hard on this body of mine amd that helped me   remember that I don't want to do that.
I forgot that my family would be just fine without me. Not perfectly fine, but fine enough.
I forgot that I really can't drink powdered ice-tea or lemonaide. That goes for chickem salad as well.
I forgot that a daily Starbucks habit becomes a daily headache when you are out of town. Yikkes!
I forgot that a lightening/hail/thunder/torrential rain, all at the same time,  storm,  while driving would reduce me to a puddle of hysteria in 5 minutes.
I forgot alot but now I remember! 

watching it all change right before my eyes

the girl went camping for 3 days without me

and i was fine. 

fine.

the whole time, 

fine.

 

i saw sweet Tejan in the store for the first time

since i stopped working from home

and he didn't want to talk to me

and i understood completely.

( he was so tall!)

i was about thinking about visiting my favorite 4 year old this week

and i realized i have two favorite 4 year olds now,

and that there is room for both in my heart

i am about to make my first solo road trip off the island,

ever,

i am going away for a week without anyone from my house!

alone in the car, just me.

i no longer miss dairy,

unless it's pizza we are discussing.

i can see the other side now,

glimpses of life without full time responsibilities at home,

the side where my children have their own lives and i love that,

rather than dread it.

friendships are made that never ever seemed likely

and friendships end that i thought would last forever.

priorities shift, thoughts soften, time takes on a new rhythm,

goals change, bodies shift shape, perspectives alter.

dreams fade from sight or light up the night sky

depending on the season.

and i remember that even as everything changes around me,

i am on  track.

i am on the track that is there especially for me

and that it is not at all like i expected

or even wanted some days,

but it is exactly right for me.

there is a solidness there that i appreciate.

 

 

questions

 

it is a season of questioning for me.

questions that often have no answer,

need no answer. 

and that's the gift.

not needing answers like i once did.

being at peace with uncertainty.

trusting the process, more than the end result.

i started out wanting answers of course.

 concise boxes to place around my queries,

logical, reasonable responses

to illogical, "don't ask questions such as those" questions.

i felt worried for a while about what was rumbling through my head,

the unwavering, pull no punches questions around

faith, parenting, commitment, ambition, dream following, health, unanswered prayers, the ways of dogma, big world questions, and tiny in my own backyard quandaries. 

well,

almost everything has become a question at some point recently.

i felt a sense of betrayal to my past, to my supposed future, to my present

and i had moments where i would look to the sky and actually expect god to smote me,

or i would wait for something really, really "bad" to happen as a result of,

what felt a little, some-days a lot like,

betrayal.

of course,

that didn't happen and won't happen 

and i ask all sorts of questions now with increasing freedom and bravery.

very few of them find answers,

 but some do,

and i record it all in my journal,

because my head is leaky

 and i want to be able to look back at the time of questioning 

and gently laugh at myself or marvel at myself

or both.

 

oh the stories i could tell {july edition}

 

 

 

 

 

here's May 

and April

if you wanna go back in time with me:)