Anticipation

My days all seem to be running together.  I actually have to look down on my little calendar icon on my computer to see what the date is as I currently live from one doctor's appointment to the next.  Well... there I go again... it's the anticipation.  I guess I'd like to say that in many ways this is so hard, this bedrest thing... but then considering all that we have been through this past year, it certainly isn't the worst... not by a long shot.  

For good or bad I feel like I have gotten in a routine of doing nothing. I guess for now we'll say that is good.  I certainly don't envision myself and my enormous Type A personality having a problem getting back to the cooking, cleaning, kiddos, errands, husband, cleaning, playing, dinner, cleaning, cleaning, did I mention cleaning (since my house definitely needs a good cleaning)... but right now that freedom to not do all the things that I really won't want to be doing later doesn't seem to be  bothering me as much as I thought.  It sounds okay huh? Maybe... unless you know me.  Maybe I'm just in a funk.

Lately I haven't felt extremely social.  For some reason I don't feel like I'm part of the living world.  I kind of feel like I'm in seclusion at this point, just as I was right after Maddox was born.  I feel like I'm trying to fill my days with a bunch of nothing and well, to my credit, I guess I'm succeeding.  Yeah, I'm trying to be productive with projects, but this nothingness is sort of nice... and sort of terrible.  What I really look forward to are my daily showers, when Deacon gets home from preschool and when Dusty gets home from work.  But then again, strangely, I look forward to the times when I'm alone.  I would love to say that that is when I do most of my praying, bible study, focusing... but nope, that is just when my mind is nowhere.  Is that weird?  I kind of think it is.

No worries... I'm not depressed.  I'm not totally overwhelmed.  I just don't feel like I'm much of anything.  I told a friend a few weeks ago that I just want to focus on being present in each day but sometimes I feel so detached.  Maybe that's what I'm trying to do as I read with Deacon, play with trains on the couch, do an occasional coloring project or pray with him.  I think what I suddenly just realized is that I'm just tired of living for tomorrow... so maybe the Lord has given me this time to just be.  Not to let my mind atrophy as it sometimes feels like I'm doing, but to just BE.

I haven't done a lot of be-ing lately.  Not in quite some time.

As I have reflected on the last 2 years, I realized how much I have actually lived for tomorrow without simply being present for today.  It's so sad really... always feeling like I'm looking to the next thing.  I guess it maybe started when I was ready for another baby.  I was ready for a second child much sooner than Dusty, really by Deacon's first birthday.  So of course that's where all of this began. Anticipating the "next big adventure"... By time we were both ready to begin trying again, I felt all the excitement of a new baby.  I didn't realize that would begin my "training" in the waiting game.  We tried for 6 months before we found out we were pregnant and it felt like a bunch of "hurry up and wait" as I longed to see those two pink lines month after month as my friends kept announcing second and third pregnancies.  Finally in July we discovered we too were pregnant.  FINALLY I felt I could move on.

Next it was the anticipation of finding out the sex of the baby... then in my mind, when he would be born.  Of course God knew there would be more steps involved this time around.  When we got Maddox's definitive diagnosis on Friday, September 28th, the world was suddenly a different color.  At that point it marked the anticipation of what was to come with his little life. The months of anticipating his arrival came to head on January 23rd of this year and oh how quickly that day came and went.  I felt thrust into the grieving-mode (little did I realize I had been doing that already for 4 months) and then the anticipation of getting past the pain and hurt... or at least it not cutting so deep.  As you know, we then quickly found out we were expecting again... on to the next thing to look forward to.  Now I feel like I'm in the "hurry up and wait" time again, for about the 20th time in the last 2 years.  It makes me so frustrated at myself.  I don't really understand why I'm not just living in the here-and-now... I want to be here... I want to be surrounded by the love and comfort and care that has carried me... I want to love my children, my husband, my family, my friends, my God... I guess maybe I just want to be out of THIS place.  It just feels so contradictory as I am so thankful, yet SO ready to LIVE again.  I mean, really live!  

My friend Rachel, someone who has been through so much too, mentioned to me in the hospital that one day I would look back on all of this and think, "wow, those were really a tough couple of years!"  I totally agreed with her as I said that we were doing great... that God knew what we could handle and we were just "doing it" and were stronger for it... Now I look back, realizing that even in the midst of it, well, it feels hard sometimes.  Some days it's all just difficult.  

I guess what I'm saying is that no matter what we are going through... whether it is the loss of your own child, the loss of your freedom to do what you want, the destructive nature of a bad relationship with your husband, your kids, your mom, the daily challenge of managing little kids  with your husband often gone, or unhealed hurts from the past that leave you feeling angry, overwhelmed or helpless... we can ALL still live in the present.  We need to focus daily on the blessings that the Lord has given us.  We, beginning with me, need to remember that regardless of the difficulties of today, we can still praise the Lord for His goodness, His grace, His forgiveness and His love in this very moment.  Tomorrow is one day closer to an answer, a solution, a decision, or an answered prayer... and quite possibly one day closer to that "something" we are each anticipating.  So, since tomorrow will be here soon... I'm going to keep trying to focus a little more on today.

"The living, the living—they praise you, as I am doing today; fathers tell their children about your faithfulness."- Isaiah 38:19