Re-seen...

4:15. I hear the door slam open and my daughter yelling 'It's dad!"

I run to the kitchen, down the stairs and through the open doorway. My view is blocked by the van, and then my eyes meet his over its roof...and as I round the hood of the van, he is standing there, arms around the girls, his first hug-of-return an exact replica of the last.

Except for their faces!

And then we are together and it doesn't matter who is walking or driving past our house because he is warm and here and we are in love.

One More Get-Up...

This is the 47th day I have woken up alone.

Tomorrow will be the 48th, but it will be different. I will not wake up vaguely confused before heading into a day that feels too tight around me.

I will wake up knowing that today, Day 48, he is waking up and heading onto the highway, coming home. There will be some happy anticipation and anxiety about the driving, and then a careful forgetting so as not to feel the anxiety.

It will be the longest day because he will be so close; it will be the shortest day because I will have so much work to do to meet Monday's deadline and I will not want to bring it home.

I think I may allow myself to cry.

Plans Change

Be Still...

It had been a nightmare day, the culmination of too much to do in too little time.

And then a staff meeting that stretched to 4:30, swift walk home to make early dinner grilled cheese sandwiches and into the van at 4:55 to get to the sports store to buy a helmet and get the face mask attached, drop the happy daughter at home and be at my discernment meeting for 5:30.

I arrived on time, but did not feel prepared. This meeting, which should have been the centrepiece of my day, felt like another box to be ticked off.

I was thinking this as I headed into the house to pick up the daughter for her practice. Somehow I had missed the fact that my mom's car was in the driveway--but there she was, sitting on the couch, chatting with the girls. It was good to get a hug from her, good to have her sitting next to me in the cold arena, sharing our pride in my daughter as we watched her skating and stick handling improve by the minute.

A skype visit with my husband, conversation with my other daughter, and a vain attempt to wrest an hour of tv watching into the end of my day...I crawled to bed at 11:40 and slept.

And woke at 5.

I had talked about relaxing into God, letting go and trusting, and how so much of these past months has felt like being carried along on a rushing river. After so much tumult of the spirit in deciding to enter discernment, I now felt nothing...I was on a still pond. No wind in my sails, no sense of direction. Just a sense that my life is fraudulent, that there is an entire dimension of self that is being neglected as I move through my work. This job has come to a standstill.

And I thought/heard: Be still.............and know that I am God.

Be still, and know that I am God.

The lessons continue.

A New Lesson

I have been moving clumsily through my life these past few weeks.

When a hydrant down the street was replaced, we were put on a 'boil water' advisory for a week; last Wednesday I realized that our fridge was broken. I do not regret for a moment my role change at work, but there is a steep learning curve for some of the changes that have occurred since I last did the job. Add to this my daughter's decision to learn a new sport which requires (to my performing arts mind-set) intricate full-body armour about which I know nothing and the stage is set. I have needed help.

I have recognized my need, set aside my pride, asked for help and received it. I had no idea that accepting acts of kindness from other people would make me feel so connected to community.

What have I been missing by trying to be so self-contained?