Growing Pains

My family and I spent the Memorial Day weekend away with good friends in Port Ludlow, WA. I was a bit anxious leaving the house, on a weekend away. Hadn't really gone anywhere in a long time, nor spent that much time with my friends since Whitney's hospitalization and even less time after she passed away. That Friday morning, the day we were to leave, I had seen my son Corbin's preschool teacher from back in the day outside of the school cleaning up from what I knew was Bike Day at the school. I had been feeling the urge to speak to her since Whitney had passed, but chickened out several times. I even had her home phone, cell and work number in my cell phone...funny I had kept those numbers through all the years. I knew this woman had been through the most hardships other then my mother and I desired to speak to her. She had lost her son, tragically in a car accident, he was very young as well and she is a survivor of Breast Cancer. I had always felt connected to this woman and I knew God was urging me to speak with her. That morning as I saw her cleaning up outside, with a lot of hesitation I pulled in and said hello, but barley got much out of my mouth before I started to sob...why is it always that way!!!  I told her what was going on in our world and she shared so very much with me and I would like to think that helped me kick start this weekend. She gave me advice about how to comfort my mom and what my mom is going through, reassured me that my mom's grief is normal (not that I ever thought my mom wasn't normal). Just a small amount of time with this woman helped me feel a lot better and it opened the door to go to her anytime I need to talk. Someone who has lost someone, especially in this way is a life saver. They totally get the pain, they understand why I don't feel like moving and life just passes me by. They get why my ankles feel like they are trapped in cement with every step I take. Grief is painful and forever. This woman told me, time doesn't heal all wounds...you just have a higher threshold for pain as time goes by. 

We spent a lot of time while in Port Ludlow, walking, moving, and we were always busy with something. You cant just take a nap, kick back and relax, you have to up and moving. This also has a lot to do with Rhoda's lack of comfortable furniture and her minimalistic living.

In all honesty my body feels like I have been beaten with a tennis racket and my feet are so swollen from all the walking on rocks and in sand, through the forts at Fort Worden and up and down Rhoda's stairs, countless trips to the bathroom with 10 children, not to mention cooking for 17 people. But in all that physical exhaustion is a feeling of growth...I needed to feel that pain again, I need to feel like I can go for a walk or go to the pool. To feel the muscles fatigued in my legs and the burn on my face and arms, I finally feel something other than sadness. I felt like I needed that pain, I needed that pain to push me to do something other than nothing. All morning I have been doing laundry, picking up toys, calling doctors, making food, doing the normal stuff one does and I felt okay with it. My old routine (especially on non school days) was to get up, make breakfast, tell the kids to start there work and sit on the couch for hours, reading, facebooking, googling or listening to music...randomly being asked to help with school work, then make lunch and do the same routine till dinner, make dinner then maybe decide to do a loud of dishes or laundry, because I had wasted an entire day and had nothing to show for it. My kids sadly didn't have a mother, they had a Robot. I made sure they were taken care of and even guilt myself into doing one thing a day for the kids. I had become so accustomed to nothing, that this weekend made me feel like the pain of stretching myself beyond what I had been doing was a better pain then the pain of doing nothing, especially for the wellness of my kids.My kids had so much fun--- fun being with their family and friends and spending time doing something.

I am growing, moving a bit faster, maybe the cement around my ankles is starting to chip off.