Things About the Seasons

Today is my youngest daughter's sixteenth birthday. She's the last chick in my little nest. Last woman standing. Aspen came into my life when the whole thing was falling apart... or in retrospect, maybe it was coming together. With her as a small baby I left behind a life, a husband, a community that had done far more damage than I think I have realized even now. She was a like a healing balm. Her painfully precious spirit was a constant reminder that there was still good in the world and a reason to keep going.

Life ebbs and flows. I continue to learn how to work with the seasons and quit fighting them so hard, trusting that once again, instead of my life falling apart, hindsight will tell me that it's just opening up to the next thing. And Aspen is still here. Still reminding me that there is good in the world. She's got a quick wit and a smart mouth, but it's no less precious than her tiny-person realism 16 years ago. Instead of a giggling little imp, she's a sarcastic teenager, and it's just what I need.

Today feels heavy. It's a combination of loss and the reality that this kid will only be my sidekick for two more years and then I am on my own to find the good out there. As the years pass, I have had to look back and find healing for the damage of those early years, for myself and for my girls. Avoidance only works for so long, as I am discovering.

I guess it's ok to let the weight settle and embrace the pain of growth. It's a season. Maybe the next will hold more joy. Maybe I will learn to be more like Aspen, and embrace the rock and roll of life with a good sense of humor and an abiding sense of joy in the journey.

Things That Twist

For awhile, this blog was called Bendability. It was my cousin's idea during one of the times I decided I needed a "rebranding." I lived in Bend, and most of what I wrote about had to do with adaptability and making life up on the fly, which has always been status quo in my world.

I guess as I get older, the constant shifting and changing has less appeal to me. I earned the sarcastic nickname "Predictability" years ago because the only thing predictable about me was my inconsistency, according to certain people. Now I don't know what I am.

My life has adopted certain consistencies lately... a "normal" job, routine... early bedtimes, healthier meals. I've come to appreciate some of it. But I also think I have bought into a certain level of living hell in the name of peace and compromise. Doing the "adult" thing. If it was making me more financially solvent, I'd be less skeptical. But I can't say that it is, yet.

Just when I really thought I was ready for an all-American, girl-next-door lifestyle, things got shook again and I am back at ground zero and I can go any which way I want. I mean sure, there's this job thing to think about. And a kid who likes it where she is and probably appreciates any consistency I can throw her way. But then there's the rest of the world, and it ain't here.

I guess I've just been reminded in a very sudden and unexpected way that it's still up to me and the sky is the limit. All I have to do is decide what to be and go be it.