Travel Log Day One

In case you missed it, we are moving, as in right now.  From Bremerton, Washington in the Pac NW all the way to Groton, Ct on the East Coast.  About as far away from home as we can go and still be in the continental US.

Today's Goal #1:  Wake up and head out at 4 am. 

Today's Reality:  It was somewhere closer to 8 am by the time everyone woke up and we didn't head out until 9:45. 

Yesterday was packing our stuff up that we wanted to bring with us after the movers got everything else and loading up the vehicles.  At 11 pm last night as we were still loading up the cars and had a lot left to do I decided that 4 am was just not going to happen.  At least not very happily.  I don't regret that decision.

Today's Goal # 2:  Drive to Billings, Mt.  A 13 hour and 5 minute drive w/o stops.

Today's Reality:  We made it to Missoula, Mt. An 8 hour 13 minute trip w/o stops.  It ended up being an 11 hour car ride with many bathroom and food stops.  And we lost an hour with the time change.  We are currently in Mountain time.  It is 12:08 am and no one in our room is asleep.  I can't say who is sleeping or awake in my Sister's room.  She is traveling with us and has three of our kids in her room.  Everyone has been bathed/showered and are dressed in their clothes for tomorrow in order to make for a quick get-a-way.

Today's favorite Moments:

1.  When Kody and Klara actually chose to sit next to each other and played tic-tac-toe together nicely for ten minutes without argument or hating each other.  It was the first ten minutes of sibling cohesiveness between the two of them in the last 5 years.  I am pretty sure that is not an exaggeration even.

2.  When Kamden spilled soda in the back row and my sister tried to throw him a roll of paper towels. She tried 3 times before handing it to Klara to give to him.  Each of her tries the roll hit the ceiling of the van bounced off and hit Klara in the head.  We found this extremely funny.

3. Kamden and Kody having a conversation in the back row.  What I heard: "Mom tell Kody that Ninevah is not in the united states!"  Me: "What?  Ninevah?  No, Ninevah is not in the US."   Me to my Sister: "Why are they talking about Ninevah?"  Sister:  "He said Canada, not Ninevah." Me: "Oh that makes much more sense.  No Canada is not in the US.  It is above it."  Kam: "See Kody I told you!" 

 

4. Watching Karson eat his Ice cream cone.  All the kids were excited that they got to eat their dessert before their dinner tonight.

 

5. Kalen opening her Tardis thingamajiggy for her birthday this morning and being really excited.  I don't have a picture of that though, so you can get a picture of her licking the cookie dough batter from the cookies that she got to take to school for her birthday yesterday. 






This moving thing still doesn't seem real.  I feel like we should be heading back home in a couple of days.  Maybe the reality of it will hit me by the time we get to Groton.  Yesterday and this morning were more painful goodbyes.  Saying goodbye to my daytime daughter was gut wrenching.  Steve and I both broke down more than once over it.  Then saying goodbye to our family today, ugh.  One good thing about being on the road is that there are no more goodbyes to be had for the next two weeks until my Sister flies back home.  After that, it will all be hello's for a while.  Time for me to hop into the tub.  My first real tubby in months, I am looking forward to it!  6 am is going to come early though.

The Hard Goodbye

Today was a day of goodbyes. 

 I couldn't let myself really sink into the goodbye's too deeply or I wouldn't have been able to move on to the next. 

 It started with my last visit to the hospital where my boys receive their therapies once a week. 

We go two different days a week for 3 different boys. 

 One of the secretaries I have been chit chatting casual conversations with for the last 9 years.  Knowing that I would not be walking into that waiting room again was hard enough, but when I left there I went to my hardest goodbye......

The hard goodbye that leaves me tear soaked and childlike.

  The one that emotionally has my child me clinging to legs and begging to stay while the rational me pulls that clinging child away.

 It was a very hard goodbye. 

 I couldn't let myself sink completely into it while I was there. 

 Now that it is 7 hours later the depth of it is washing over me. 

 I want to run back in time and say more, feel more, be more, but there is no running back into time; 

  no re-opening that door and clinging to legs for one more moment.

So I will breathe and lay back into it, try to float above these lapping waves of sadness so that they don't over take me. 

I know that the sun will rise tomorrow and that the hurting child will calm and somehow learn to grow. 

But for now I will let her and I ride on these emotions,

because if I don't we both might drown.

Linking with

 

 

and

 

Oh My Dear

    nothing to say, just sharing the love of this song.

Just Write: The background music says it all

This is my first post linking up with


The house is beginning its quieting din.  The time right before everyone settles in for the night.  My daughter cuts herself a piece of cranberry orange cake purchased from Costco earlier today.  It is rather crumbly and gives part of itself to the floor.  I tell her she is making a mess.  More of a commentary than a criticism.  She says that she will sweep.  "Oh, good!  Get the dining room while you are at it."  I say a silent thank you to the cake that spilled, because I hadn't really wanted to sweep tonight. 

I watch her as she sweeps the floor, singing off key and being very teenagery as she does it.  I see how she is growing up and changing.  It brings out the critical in me.  I can see in her the parts of me that I never liked, the parts I wish I had learned to master.  I hold back my tongue and stop myself from saying things about what I notice and how she can be better than me.   I don't want her inner voice to be the same critical tyrant that mine is.  I want better for her, so I bite my lip. 

I fight with that tyrant daily, moment by moment, and I know how those battle scars look and feel and I want better than that for her.  That tyrant in my head is vicious.

She has finished sweeping the floor and I sit in darkened silence and I fight for my daughter and myself against that stabbing voice.  The voice that tells me my ruin will ruin her as well.  And I fight and I fight and I fight, because she is beloved and I am trying to learn how to feel beloved too in the midst of my broken.

The music of Swan Lake plays in the background on a tv in another room.

Writing beloved has quieted the tyrannical voice.





In case you want to read a synopsis of Swan Lake

Sweet and Sour

 It is a sweet and sour kind of night. 

A night where the sweet slips in briefly between the sour and  I capture it quick before it turns again.  A sweet moment of contentment while dining on fries and nuggets where such a pleasure is usually forbidden.  It is just he and I and we both are in need  of reprieve and a quilted blanket picnic tonight.

 

Oh this sweet and sour boy of mine.  How he fills me up and drains me dry. 

 

It is a constant push and pull.  The push for freedom and the pull to be sure I haven't let him go. 

 

He is all "YES!" to my "no" and "NO!" to my "yes". 

He struggles so hard for his words and the ones that come are rarely clear and often misunderstood.  It is always a fight for him to be heard and known when he doesn't communicate the same as those of us who are trying to listen.   We are both battle weary by the end of the day.   So I will savor this sweet to help temper the tang of the sour. 

 

 

Five minute friday (Here)

Here I am.  2 years and 4 months later.  It is strange to see the numbers set down like that.  In some ways it feels so distant  and in others it feels like it is just behind me and if I turn around I might slip back into it.

Here I am.  My arms no longer covered in bruises dark.  I can run my fingers over them and and there is no tenderness to the touch.  My mind is no longer consumed with thoughts of knives cutting deep and sinks filled with blood.

Here I am.  Moving into the tomorrows, with an eye on the yesterdays, and my heart firmly planted in the today's.  No longer scared of the breathing.

Here I am.  Finding my voice after almost a year of silence. 

Here I am.  Here I am.  Here I am.

Can you hear me?  I am here and I am breathing.

Linking with Five Minute Fridays.

We are a people called to arms

I read a blog today by Ann Voskamp.  It touched my soul as her words often do.  You can read it HERE if you would like.  It is in very short and simple terms a call to arms for us as Christians.  A call to literally reach out our arms and touch the lives of the lost and the hurting.  Not long after reading her blog I got onto facebook and someone had shared this STORY about a man holding a sign that read, "Will work for food."   The combination of these two things brought back to mind a couple memories of mine.  Memories of times that God called me to arms, to hands held out, and I ignored His calls.

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The Woman I didn't know in a town I don't remember

It was a Sunday morning, sitting on a hard church pew in a town that wasn't mine in a church I had never been.  We were just traveling through. We were on vacation and stopped at this church on Sunday morning.  The sun shone through the stained glass and you could see the dust particles floating in the colored strands of sunlight.  The only other souls I knew there were the ones of my family sitting next to me.  Pastor stood and said to shake the hands of those around you.  I turned and shook hands, smiling, saying our hello's, and then I turned behind me and I saw her.  She was older than I.  Maybe in her forties or fifties.  It was hard to tell.  She looked tired and worn.  Her eyes hung heavy and the weight of the world seemed to rest on her shoulders.  She sat alone. 

She was bathed in colored light and God told me to hug her.  He told me to hug her tight and say that my arms were His and He loved her.  I froze inside myself.  I couldn't be hearing Him correctly.  It was just me, my imagination saying this.  I am in an un-known church, I am but a young girl, only a teenager, half of her age.  Who am I, God?  What will she think?  I argued with Him until it was time to sit down.  I have no idea what the sermon was about now, I just remember telling God all the reasons why I must be hearing wrong.  Why I was not the person to do the job.  We piled into the car and started driving down the street.  The woman walked along the sidewalk beside us, alone, clinging to her ragged Bible in her hands.  Again God called.  "Tell them to stop, go hug her.  Tell her I love her."  I sat silently in the back seat as we kept on driving.  I prayed that if I had heard God correctly that He would please send another to be His arms.  Someone more qualified than I.  I have never seen that woman again, from a town I don't remember in a state that isn't mine, but she has walked down the streets of my mind many times since then.  Each time I pray that she heard His message that she knows that she is loved and my heart bleeds for the arms I didn't open.

God didn't let up, but neither did my excuses

 

He came over bearing gifts for Christmas.  It was December and family was over.  He stood in the living room with his gifts for us and told us about how his stomach had been hurting.  He lived next door and would talk to the children and give them popsicles in summer.  As he stood there talking God told me to go lay hands on him and pray.  "What?  Are you serious God, he will think I am a nutjob.  I don't even know if he is Christian or not.  He might not even believe in you."  (as if any of that matters).  I didn't listen.  I blew God off, again.  "I can pray for him right here Lord, in my mind.  That is the same anyways isn't it."  God didn't let up, but neither did my excuses.  I watched as he left our house on his way back to his own and I prayed that my silent prayers would be enough, even though I had been called to pray outloud with hands outstretched. 

 

The next day his aeorta ruptured and he almost died. It was a miracle that he didn't.  He was in the hospital for a long while after.  Guilt seared my heart and I spent time on knees crying out that my prayers would be enough to save him.  Knees planted in carpet, face buried in cushioned chair now soaked with guilt laced tears.  "God," I prayed, "If my obedience of prayers out loud may have saved him yesterday, please let my prayers be enough to save him today."  He recovered, but has never been the same since.  I made goodies in a basket and a card begging his forgiveness for not obeying God's call.  Funny how my fears of offending him with prayer vanished so quickly, but it really isn't funny at all.  He lived, but I have always wondered what would have been had I stopped arguing and just listened.  I had been called to arms again, to hands stretched out and I had failed to listen. 

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My own insecurities, my own doubts and fears stopped me from doing the most simplest of things, to just reach out my hands.  We are a people called to arms.  A people called to reach out our hands.  Help me, help me Lord to be your arms, your hands.  Help me to listen and also to obey.