A Season of Change

I never really to the time to be thankful for the stability in our lives or realized how much I truly loved it until the past few months when my little pocket of the world started to shift......some small little tilts and a couple of seemingly gigantic drops and turns.  

Ecclesiastes 3 tells me "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
     a time to be born and a time to die,
     a time to plant and a time to uproot,
     a time to kill and a time to heal,
     a time to tear down and a time to build,
     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
     a time to mourn and a time to dance,
     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
     a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
     a time to search and a time to give up,
     a time to keep and a time to throw away,
     a time to tear and a time to mend,
     a time to be silent and a time to speak,
     a time to love and a time to hate,
     a time for war and a time for peace."


I know it's true, but I'm not so good with change. 

The biggest, most obvious change around here is that M is gone.  There's an M sized hole that exists right now.  Our family space in this place we call home has been forever altered.  That almost sounds too dramatic a statement to make about a child that has 'just gone to college'.  Trust me, I hear it all the time.  And yes, at some point, he will make it back to this house, and he will sleep in his bed...........but I will tell you this, it will never be the same again.  I simply don't have words for what it feels like for this mama to have a son in college.  It's a bit different for me because of the whole homeschooling factor.  I never chose to homeschool my kids to completely separate them from the world.  That was never how our homeschool operated anyway.  But, especially for me with M because he was and always will be the first, every step he took and achievement he got was also mine.....when he graduated from elementary to middle school, his teacher did too.......then on to high school, and his teacher got to go there too.......seriously, I think that I was more excited and relieved than he was when his college acceptance letters started arriving.  You have no idea what stress was lifted from the shoulders of this mama/teacher/principal/school counselor when there was proof written in black and white that I hadn't managed to screw this whole homeschool thing up!  But now things have changed......he's off to college, but I am not.  I am so excited for him!!!  But it's so strange to be left behind.........to go from a front row seat, to the nose-bleed section.....headed for just reading about the whole experience in the newspaper.  That part is a bit different for me than for traditionally schooling moms.  I'm actually ok with that part.  He's been pretty much on his own as a dual enrolled college student for a couple of years anyway.  What I haven't quite adjusted to is the the simple fact that I miss him.  I really like him as a person.  I miss him showing up in my room late at night to chat; I hate that he won't be texting, "mom, you want to join me for lunch?"  It hurts my heart to know that I may, in fact, never get that text again.  I don't know what the future holds, but I know that it will never again be like it was just a few short weeks ago when all three of my kids slept in their beds in my house just about every night.  When he does make it home, it will be to visit............and he will be different.  He won't be the teen that left my house.  He will be the man that he is becoming every moment of every day.  I'll always be his mom, and he'll always be my baby......but it's all too clear to me that it will never be the same again.  So I've given myself permission to mourn that that season of my life is over.  That doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the seasons that are ahead.....just giving myself permission to remember and acknowledge what was and that it's ok, maybe even great, that I loved it so much that I miss it terribly.

Yes, this is definitely a season of change around here.  Maybe I'll write about some other of those changes soon. For now, I'm going to sleep.


                                                                                  Amy

You Know It's Been Too Long When....

Well, I guess I just took an unintended 3 1/2 year break from this old blog.  Really, I have no idea what it was that made me step away...........probably more of a drift that just kept drifting.  Whatever the case, about a month ago I got the itch to put some words on the screen again.  Yes, it has taken me a month to get back here even after I had the desire to do so.  I've got issues!  And finally, tonight, for whatever reason, I was determined to make it back.  You see, a couple of times in the last month, I'm made attempts to get back here.  But it seems that when you can't remember the email address associated with your blog log in, it can be a bit difficult to figure out how to get back in.  Issues.....remember.  So tonight, I decided I was going to dig through my 'keeps' folder in the filing cabinet with the hopes that at some point in the past I was smart enough to write down my login information somewhere.  It took awhile, but I did finally find a crunched up piece of paper with the info I needed to get me back here.........so here I am.

I did read the last post I wrote so very long ago, but not the ones before.  So I'm going to do a VERY quick, like shorter than Reader's Digest quick, very boring summary of where I find myself today....
We'll start with the whole "Meet the Family" section. What is says about me is still true, though we've been married now for 22 years......seriously, a lifetime, how did that happen????  And I have had a few birthdays and am now 40-something.  C is still as amazing as he has always been, just a little more 'distinguished' with the hair if you know what I mean.  M, oh my M, he's---GULP---18 now.  He grew up to be this amazing tech genius, and he's left me for this foreign land he calls college.  That whole process is what really kicked up my need to get some feelings out here, so I'm sure you'll hear more about it soon.  K is still stuck in the middle, He's almost 16 now and is confidently driving me everywhere with his learner's permit. He still loves sports, especially soccer.  And D is still my baby girl; she's just all grown up and 13 years old now.  She took her last chemo pills on May 20, 2013.  I'm sure that her journey which is also my journey will be discussed here as well......really, it's thoughts about that part of my life that have partially brought me back here too.

My last post here was on January 20, 2013.....that was 1,324 days ago.  I'm not the same person as I was then----shocker!!!  The changes have been good and bad I suppose. I guess we'll all see those revealed as these words go from my fingers to the screen.  One thing I am certain of is that my God has not changed in those days that have passed...........He is ever faithful to be exactly who He has always said He is and will be......me, not so much.  But I still want to say yes, so here I am.  Hopefully posting a little more regularly than every 3 1/2 years of so :)


                                                                                       Amy