It's been a weird year for me, coming down from running a preschool in my house, to not and choosing to homeschool my only child. Beatrix is nearing seven years old. How? In seven more years she will be 14. In ten years... Where does time go? Why is it so darn fast? It feels like in the blink of an eye, we suddenly took that long drive to Amarillo on a bright, spring morning. Met our 6 pound daughter, fell madly in love, and leapt into the wildest, most profound journey of our lifetime...parenting Beatrix. She nearly reaches me at my shoulder. She is heavy. I can't really pick her up for more than a minute or so. She covers my entire body when she climbs into my lap. She struggles with goodbyes. Her intensity is unlike almost everyone I know. She feels all the feels from a large radius around her. Oftentimes, I worry that I'm too hard on her. Oftentimes, my heart breaks when she puts herself down. Oftentimes, I wonder how did we get to this point. Oftentimes, I try to remember to take my own deep breathe as I dutifully remind her to do the same. Oftentimes, I wish for another chance to try again, that I didn't get it right this one and only time. Oftentimes, I feel lonely and I sense that she does too.
We hurt. We struggle. We love. We breathe. We try again. To get it. To be kind to ourselves. To be kind to each other. To heal the wounds that we each arrived here with.
Those are the difficult times. The larger than life, is everything going to be okay times? In between, we look like most everyone else, I suppose. I'm grateful for this season of my life, with all of it's heaviness because I still get to dream of wildflowers, sip coffee, take in the morning sunshine from my kitchen window, plan my next road trip, listen to birdsong on our daily doggy walks around the neighborhood, feel the sensation of my toes and feet submerged into the mini rapids of our little river. And gosh so much more. Sometimes I joke with myself that if I squint my eyes just right, there's just the right amount of blurriness around our existence and it all looks like a fairytale. And then I chuckle, raise my eyebrows, and shake my head. I remind myself daily to let the heaviness go. What will be will be. I'm doing my best here by loving unconditionally and relentlessly and that is enough.
And in the end, I truly believe this life is beautiful and so worth every ounce of pain. And it shouldn't go by without a little pause and reflection. And so, I'm here. In this place that I can't quite let go of. Still trying.
