Back in the Saddle Again

It’s only been half a year.

6 months.

Feels like that many lifetimes, actually.

– Where have I been?

Right here.

– What have been up to?

Getting through it.

– What is “it?”

That’s a long story. How long do you have?

– How much time will it take?

About six months.

– Um, in a blog post?

Exactly.  See my problem?  How can I ever “catch up” here?!

I’m a completely different person.

I’ve never been more myself.

Everything has changed.

Nothing has changed.

How do I fit that in 1,000 words or less?

Life stood still.  It never does that, but it did for me.

Time flew by impossibly quickly.

I’ll never be the same.

I would never want to be.

After these last 6 months, I…

Look at the world through totally new eyes.

Smile at the little things.

Laugh with the same joy as my children.

Laugh at the hard things… unless they make me cry.

Stand in silent wonder at the beautiful things… unless they make me cry, too.

Say what I mean.

Mean what I say.

Mess up all the time, but still I can…

Pray from a totally different place.

Work for totally different reasons.

Play with a totally different attitude.

Love from a totally different heart.

Feel without being afraid of it.

I can live in the now – with deep gratitude for the past – and nothing but hope for the future.

My future.  Your future.  Our kids’ futures.

Maybe I’ll share that journey here someday.   — Maybe I won’t. —  It’s intensely private. 
NO ONE knows the whole story except God. Not even me.

What I do know is that He was in charge of every. single. step. and He led me where He needed me to be.

Here.

Happy.

Well.

Whole.

In every way.

What looked for a moment like a sunset turned miraculously into a sunrise.

He works in mysterious ways, but I have learned that if you just go with it even if when it leads you somewhere rocky and painful, it will all work out.

I want to write.  I want to sing what He’s done for me from the rooftops.  I want every person who’s ever prayed for me & my family to know how well it worked out.  I want to show from the depths of my heart the appreciation I have for the acts of service that sustained my family during the last 1/2-year.

Nothing I can do will ever repay them. I’ll just have to pay it forward somehow.

Forgive me if I seem a little disjointed sometimes.

I’m okay, really.  I’m just getting used to myself all over again.

It sounds a little crazy to write it that way, but that’s exactly what I’m doing: getting used to myself.   It takes a newborn about 20 years to figure that out, so I might take a little while.  Be patient.

You’d have to spend your whole life with part of your brain completely shut down – but thinking you were totally fine – and then have it turned on in the process of a few months – to know how what I mean by “getting used to myself.”  Anyone else ever had that happen?  Anyone?

Hm.

Well.

IF by chance you did, then you know what I mean.

Just getting used to myself.  I expect it might take a month or two.  Go easy on me. 

I’m looking forward now to finding out why God let me choose to not die in December, why He let the last 6 months go the miraculous way they did, and more about what He wants me to do now.

In the mean time, like I said, forgive me if I seem

– spacey, absent-minded, forgetful… yeah that.

– I was going to list more, but I think “forgetful” is the big one… And I’ve kinda forgotten the other ones.

Ha!  I just asked my niece, “Hey, besides spacey, how would you describe how I’ve been the last few weeks?”

– she answered, “totally lovable.”

She’s cute like that.

Alrighty then!

Post: Written.

Dinner: Procrastinated.

Baby: Waking up.

Oh: Fiddlesticks.

But fiddlesticks reminds me of fishsticks, and THAT would be a great thing to go with the mashed potatoes I started cooking & someone angelic finished while I wrote this.  I could probably even do fishsticks with an almost-one-year-old in arms.

I wonder if we have any.

Fishsticks.  Not almost-one-year-olds.  That, we have.  And she’s adorable.

Note: this was written 3 weeks ago… In case you’re wondering, Baby H has since turned one – happy day! – and dinner that night was epic-ly awful, except for the mashed potatoes mentioned.  My cooking skills (or lack thereof) are in the “nothing has changed” category.   😉

And on that cheery note, I shall bid you a fond “Thanks for coming, see you again soon!” and write more later.  Next time I’ll probably even have pictures and show you how big the Smithlings are now.  Time stood still for me, but clearly not for them. 

Funny how that works!