For Such a Time as This

Cocooning is a natural part of grieving for me. Pulling in my immediate family within the confines of my four walls, loving on them, leaning with them, all of us learning to do life in a way that is drastically different. The noise of the outside world too chaotic at times for me to partake. I know I need to preserve my energy and plan days with nothing but white around the edges. A long time ago, when all the kids were younger, balance felt so hard. Now it feels as normal as breathing. Yes, if I want to; No, if I don't. There are no apologies for this season of rest. Focusing on my mental and physical health is a necessity for such a time as this.

Putting up boundaries, no longer putting out fires, simply cherishing the every day life that we are blessed to live is my present. The truth is, when it is all said and done, your immediate family is all that you have. Luckily for me, we have poured in to each other and we are open to the shifting seasons. With an adult son grown, two in college, and one about to start, it makes sense to be available when they are, to make plans with them in it and to simply be together. Everyone's schedule is different now. We have jobs and school, but sitting around the table and story telling is important enought that we have reinstated Sunday family dinners. I will often try a recipe from the gazillion my mom collected. The keepers will go in to the family cookbook. The others, I am not afraid to throw away. Memory making one meal at a time. My mom would like this new tradition.

Adventuring has taken on a new meaning as well. We have five trips planned over the next seven months. These trips give something for us to look forward to. They are planned well in advance so the older kids can ask for time off if they want to, but they are small treasure troves of adventuring with which we will make the best new memories regardless of who is there. 

Every day at two pm, my alarm goes off. There is a quote I refer to daily, that reminds me, " That was before. This is now." A lot of days there's a battle going on in my mind for what it used to look and feel like and what it actually does. This little dose of reality calls a truce in my brain. What it was versus what it is. I am learning to accept it.

In a lot of ways, memories of my early childhood with my brother have mostly brought me joy. I mean, there was that one time he called 911 and chased me with a butter knife, but he was my first friend. And although we were opposites like water and oil, there was an unmistakeable protectiveness about him, an annoyance that he always wanted to play with me and my neighborhood friends, an admiration for his ease in talking to all those he met. He was my entire childhood. Good, bad, and everything in between, there is no one that I have that in common with. He is not here to share those stories, to make the new memories as the adults we are now with kids who are growing up. The next chapter was starting and now it's finished before it even began.

There is deep saddness when one realizes that I am the keeper of our childhood stories. There is no longer my person to banter back and forth with ease in the story telling. There is no one who knows the highest of highs and the lowest of lows that were experienced in our childhood home together. My brothers take on the entirety of our growing up years is just gone. That alone makes me want to write our Durango Dukes adventures to share with a new generation. Perhaps my next chapter will include that. Not sure. I'm simply journaling through this experience of loss. Healing my heart, one post at a time.