Change

Springtime has always been a time of change, from winter’s cold and bleakness to a sudden dawning of black and green and hesitant new life. Nothing ever amazes me more than that first day in spring where there is a haze of green over every hill and valley in my drive. The leaves aren’t out yet, the trees are still bones reaching for the sky, but there are signs of life, growing and promising that perfect promise of what is to come. It isn’t beautiful but it holds that promise that beautiful is coming. I am grateful always for summer, but nothing holds happiness like that day of promise after winter.

This winter was the hardest I have ever remembered. There were times that I just didn’t think it would end but it did. I was back to work full time after so many wonderful years home with my girls. I missed every second away from them at the same time that I grew accustomed to being the overachiever at my career, all over again. My mother endured life changing surgery without me by her side and all of it was a part of my daily, changing, chaotic life, separated from what I loved the most.
Change came so fast and furious that I could not adapt and just kept swaying with every blow that came. Get up, try again. Get up, try again. And always do it better and faster than those around you.

In the time that I refocused on me, in order to change the world around me, my kids and my family also had to refocus their lives. It wasn’t easy on any of us, we all had to grow and change and it was *hard.* We won and we lost and we grew and reformed.

In the past year I’ve lost friends that I loved. I found new friends and lost still others. When I reach for them and they aren’t there, it hurts right down to my soul. I’ve won and lost and grew and reformed. And I miss them with every breath, even if I don’t talk about it.

Today my mother had a health scare that I’m still not prepared to deal with. We have time, but that time is finite. I know it, but knowing it is more than I wanted to know.

Tonight my girls are away. It is something is very very hard, but that change is here now and knowing is, again, more than I could prepare for. They’ll grow stronger for it. But my home is empty without them. I cannot fill it myself.

I find myself alone for the first time in years. I won, I lost and I am finding that I have to remake my life again in a crazy search for a summer that is there, just beyond reach.

This year is like one very long spring. There is a haze of green over everything….. it isn’t here yet, but there is a perfect promise that it is coming. Spring showers, May flowers. And then a summer spent with those that you love the most.

I miss what I lost. I’m grateful for what I had. I’m terrified and overjoyed and broken hearted and empowered by what is to come.

For Good