raising redheads: Fall 2017. less writing.

I stare at the blank canvas that is the screen before me and realize that so many weeks have passed since I have last written. Not for lack of content. Not for lack of life happening.

More so because of it, I suppose.

So much has happened that has left me breathless. Speechless. Word-less.

Which is such a drastic change for my heart because typically I process any and everything with thoughts and words and sentences on a page.

But finally I am just so tired.

And content with the outcome of all things because I can't change any of it.

I have realized, maybe, that not everything needs analyzed, thought about or written.

Or...maybe I just can't. Haven't been able to.

Don't want to quite yet.

Since I last wrote about August's open heart surgery many things have transpired in our little corner of the world. My sweet buddy got to come home for a couple of weeks and it was glorious. I got to see him often and help Jeni in the ways that I was able. But then things took a turn and he had a few episodes where he was unresponsive and so he was transferred back to Luries children's hospital.

2 1/2 hours away.

I have gone a couple of times to see him and even finally took Nora and Braden. They were unable to see him while he was home because we were all working really hard to keep him healthy, knowing that he would have an upcoming cath procedure at some point. Instead, he first had to have another (separate) procedure to remove an esophageal cyst. He did well and is still there recovering. My sister is exhausted and scared and sad and I am missing them so badly.

Chris and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. Nora attended her first dance. Braden played a few games of fall soccer, we trick or treated and carved pumpkins and attended Aunt Rachel and Matt's wedding! I have had shingles, Braden was bit by a dog, Nora made the high honor roll and attended a Bull's game with her classmates. Chris is busy at work and I am loving and becoming more and more successful with Senegence (the lipstick company that all your friends are posting about.) We have settled into and adore our new home and are so anxious to celebrate our first Christmas here together. We miss Mabel and I have grieved hard, as usual, in the moments that I know she would have been such a huge part of.

Which is all of them.

I'm listening to a wide range of podcasts lately and am taking the time to really think in the quiet. I love this time of year for that exact reason but I am also loving how expansive I'm allowing myself to be as I listen to the experiences of other people in the big wide world. Recently I listened to one particular episode that was based solely on the experiences of grown adults who had lost siblings in their life. Their perspectives were so eye opening to me. I drank it in deeply, paused to think and re-played to listen, really allowing myself to feel it all and think on it for days. The episode that followed was about a mother who went on to have another child after the death of her beloved son. She spoke so poignantly about the value of experiencing ALL of life's feelings. She talked of being so spiritually tapped out from the depth of her experiences. She had all of these intense situations occur in her life and they each enriched her and took her deeper and deeper with God but she expressed being exhausted from it and just wishing for once that life would allow her to feel bored. I related so deeply to this notion and yet as I listened and walked, really feeling the fall air in my lungs and looking intently at the vibrancy of the leaves on the trees in the sunlight before me, I couldn't help but feel intimately grateful that the Lord would allow me to experience the vast and enormous range of feelings that I have and continue to do so in this journey of my life. I want to feel and experience it all. Both the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

And I believe, in so many ways, I have.

And then something new happens and I realize that my heart will always feel all emotions bigger. The idea of that alone is both terrifying and exhilarating.

So much is changing around me, as it always does. I feel all of the things that a human can feel in just one single breath. And I wish there were time and space to write all the sacred things within my heart but I believe, for now, they are meant to be only felt and not spoken. I have learned somewhere along the way that THAT may be the key after all. I feel sorry, at times, that I have shared so much here. But ultimately I always come back to hoping that I will one day feel more grateful than sorrowful for the things I have shared, knowing that they will be read by my children and their children and that the story of our lives was truly valuable. That the weight of what was written was worth the cost of sharing it.

And that it was ultimately used for good and to honor God. I pray, still, that these words do that.

For now, for this very tricky and delicate season of emotions...less writing.

But some brilliant photos of things I don't ever want to forget that are happening around me.

Time is swirling and I am reeling. But even still, God is faithful.

[anniversary]