my bubble

I often feel as if I’m floating through life. Like, I’m going through all the motions, yet not really experiencing any of it. Whatever I may be doing at any given moment, my mind is in a million other moments. Constantly ahead of the next task, constantly thinking about the many struggles I have going on…..and mostly I’m thinking about how calm and free I will feel whenever I’m over all the struggles.

I often think of the piece of writing that goes around in emails every once in a while; the one that tells us to ‘live now’ and not to wait until “the bills are paid off” or “the house remodeling is complete” and that there will always be something to keep us moving. And it is so true, and I know it is true, but I also know that I’ve been completely unable to stop and really live through everything I have on my plate right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a calm existence. It’s been many years since I’ve felt at peace with the things in my life (other than my children of course, they are the one constant source of peace I have).

The past year and a half have wreaked havoc on my soul. I have been shaken to the core and tested beyond what I ever imagined I’d be. I’ve had to deal with two major and terrible losses in a very short amount of time. Losing my grandmother….a woman who was a rock in my life for 32 years; and three very short months later….not even being close to understanding her departure from this earth I lost my father….another rock. My ability to grasp the why’s of each of those losses and their timing, and the way each happened…..well, I still have a hard time understanding it all.

There have been other stressors....and at this point, I can say that I am still standing at a crossroads. But the big, important part here is the fact that I am very slowly moving. I feel like I’m starting to take steps in one direction. This direction may have other crossroads, but it’s a direction that I’ve been avoiding for quite some time. It’s a place that I never thought I would come to, nor did I want to admit that I needed to come to it.

Everyone has their vision of where they *think* their life will go. I always had a vision as a child….one where I met the perfect man, had the perfect wedding (with my father walking me down the aisle and my grandmother sitting right in the front next to my mother), brought my beautiful children home from the hospital with the same loving husband by my side and continued to spend years providing them with the same close, loving family surroundings that I grew up with as a child.

My father will never walk me down the aisle; my children spent their first three months of life in the NICU and while they are perfect and loved by all beyond anything imaginable, their father and I will never be happily married. My grandmother will never again greet me when I walk through the door at the end of the day…..but I am starting to come to terms with the fact that I have to be okay with this. I have no other choice than to accept that this is my life. In all the imperfections, all the things that have gone the total opposite of what I expected, they are all the hills and valleys that were meant for my life. Someone upstairs has chosen for things to go this way, and rather than fall on the floor and kick my legs like a tantruming toddler, I must stand up and firmly plant my feet in the soil beneath me and gain strength from the struggles.

I don’t really know for sure who I am right now. I don’t know for sure where I am going or what I will further discover about myself, but I think I’m ready to find it.