The gift of an international pandemic and lockdown, for a person like me, is thinking.
Evaluation.
Where is my life and where can it go?
It involves the inevitable blaming. It then circles back around to promise, but only if I root myself in the gratitude which doesn’t come naturally.
My prayer journal for many, many months was filled with me asking God to help me pour into the things that matter. As many do, I chose a word for a year, or a season, or a time that felt right and the word pressing into my heart was INVEST.
So I begged God to help me to invest in the things that matter–the people that matter. My parents, my kids, my husband (more difficult than the rest) and my relationship with the Lord.
I tried serving at church, but finally faced that it wasn’t working and stepped down. I have not yet found my place and purpose, but am confident it will come in due time.
I am increasingly accepting that I often don’t fit in.
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Ryan expressed an interest in learning to play tennis.
It will, quite literally, take us thousands of attempts before she will be able to bounce the ball and hit it over the net.
But the practicing gives us the chance to count and try and soak up the sunshine. I love it.
She is also, like her mama, quite the soda lover. Being on the court, in the warm rays, encourages her to drink water–because it is the only thing I make available.
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As always, the time to think brings about a renewed interest in getting healthy.
Cinnamon swirl French toast with homemade blueberry sauce and fresh fruit start her day well. The more colorful food my precious not-so-little peanut eats, the more color she has to her face. That’s a welcome thing.
She and I are spending more time outside. We take her “baby” on walks with the dog, go to the park, and (of course) play tennis.
The words of a brilliant speech therapist run through my mind, “What you see in the body, you see in the mouth,” so getting her body to move well moves us forward in many areas.
I used to take her to Louisiana once a week–a three and a half-hour drive, we’d go to Cracker Barrell for dinner and stay in a hotel together–and then go have two hours of wonderful physical therapy every Friday morning. But the costs mounted and my parents constantly needed me, so I canceled.
An international pandemic would have halted it the following week, but the loss stings.
It means I must try harder on our own. So I am.
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My beautiful college student came home early (thank you COVID 19) but is leaving again soon.
She has more of a life outside the four walls of my home than she has inside these days, and while I know that is the way it is supposed to be I can’t help but be sad.
I want the remodel of my house finished and the boathouse built so that the life she has when she comes home is even better…not so much “in process” as it has often felt.
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For years I have unsuccessfully tried to talk my mom into writing her memoirs. She is a master of words, and now that she can no longer talk, writing is the only way to get thoughts out.
It certainly would have been easier had she started when both hands worked well. Her right doesn’t work at all and her left is mildly disobedient. But I keep telling her (still unsuccessfully) that one sentence a day would add up.
That thought keeps me coming back here. Maybe, someday, my kids will want to read my words. Maybe not. But they will at least have the option that I don’t currently have.