I have always loved seasons...Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. The changes, even if slight in southern California as well as the super noticeable ones in my former homes...I feel them all. I love the seasons of the church calendar too...the seasons of Advent and Christmas and Easter. The times of preparing and waiting and celebrating.
This has been a dry season for me...a long season where there have been no published words. A season of so much change in this little house on our little street. A season of preparing. A season of waiting.
We are no longer a houseful of boys...and with that has gone a big part of who I am. Of my role. Of my place in this big wide world.
And while that season...the season of being a mom to my trio of males has been one of preparing and waiting for them to grow, because I knew all along that it wasn't forever, has ended as I knew it would. But it just seemed to go so fast.
Not the days...because those days were LONG. The ins and outs, the cooking and the laundry and the lack of sleep and the driving, driving, driving...those days felt endless at times. But the years...the overall years of raising a family?
Whoosh.
I was blessed that this last season of boys leaving the nest came slow. Matthew left for college in 2008. Alex stayed put here until this past summer. Brian left for college last year but has come home to live after his roommate situation fizzled, though he's a grown up now and is rarely here.
But me?
I'm still here.
The season of being a full-time mom...the season that felt so overwhelming at times but actually whizzed by, has come to a rather sudden end. The worry is still there and I'm thinking that season won't end for a long long LONG time (if ever)...but the boys?
Soaring to grand places.
Matthew is traveling the world and while I am SO THANKFUL for technology, I haven't hugged him since August. Alex is settled into his real, grown-up life and career...and so is Brian. That guy that I like so much has been a grown-up for decades...nothing new there.
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But me? I married so young...and would do that all over again. In a heartbeat. I had my first baby so young...and would do that all over again. In a heartbeat. But through those seasons, I never once thought about the end. Maybe because I never thought it would end?
But then one day, not too long ago, it did.
I now work each day at a regular job like most people do. It's a paycheck and while I believe in what we do and why we do it, it is an extremely negative place to work. I suppose most places are, but I just don't want to play that game...yet each day I get up and do the work needs to be done because again, I believe in what I do.
But I miss what was.
But I miss what was.
I miss the past seasons.
I so don't want to be one of those people that lives in the past...that remembers only the good from the past and not the real stuff from the past. I don't want to live in the past, period. And so these last few months...many, many months, I've been trying to find my new place in this new season.
I am blessed with a circle. A wide, wide circle. People who I can share with, pray with, drink with, spill my guts with, whine (a lot) with, talk (endlessly) with...friends who have walked the walk, who listen and don't judge.
Not to mention a very patient husband.
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And so I am stepping into a new season. I'm not kicking and screaming, but I'm stepping gently...baby step by baby step while I figure out what is next. But I do know one thing...I'm still the mom of a houseful of boys, even if none of them live under the same roof. Or even on the same continent.
Needed the same? No. Loved the same? YES.
Needed the same? No. Loved the same? YES.
I've been traveling a lot lately and that been a distraction...a work trip to the other side of the country, a much-needed visit with my family, an even more needed girlfriend weekend in the snow, in a town that I still call home.
So blessed. So very, very blessed.
There have been lots of other changes here, too...because this past season was the season of change after all. That guy that I like so much had one church job end and another, much more demanding one begin...and with that, we are now worshipping (yet again) somewhere new. But woah, I feel like I am being fed a steak dinner every Sunday in church and it's been so great.
God...He is present. And God...He is good.
The garden has closed for the season and with that winter closing comes a lot less parties. It's good in that it gives us time to replant and water and miss it a bit before things pick up again later this Spring. Things are pretty brown and droopy out there right now but with a lot of regular water and some new growth and warm sunshine, it'll soon be brought back to life.
And we'll be here. Ready.
And so here I go into this new season, this season of Lent, and treating it as a time to think and prepare and pray for what is coming. The coming of both the next season and the coming of Jesus.
Both are good.
Both are good.
And through this all, I am still cooking. Massive amounts of cooking because people still need to gather and be merry. So even if it seems that everything in my world is changing, other things remain the same.
If you cook, they will come....because people still need to eat after all. Not matter what the season.
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