It’s Been Awhile

Hi.

Nine months ago, in January, I was feeling on top of the world. We had had a wonderful holiday season and I felt refreshed with the new year. I had goals and a plan to implement them and week one had gone swimmingly; I was riding a high of accomplishment and daydreams.

Then life happened.

My husband’s family underwent a family crisis that necessitated his younger sister moving in with us. This was a choice we made together happily. She is fourteen years old and at the time was being homeschooled. We considered enrolling her in school but didn’t want to shock her system even more, so instead I guided her through her curriculum (which she received from a local homeschooling group) for the rest of the year. She still lives with us and we are so happy to have her. Seriously. She is such a strong and insightful girl and is a big help to us, especially for babysitting needs. She just started at the local high school and is thriving. Seriously, she is remarkable.

After she moved in, I took Max ice skating (being inspired by the Olympics) and promptly fractured my elbow after one lap on the ice. It was the tiniest fracture and just needed a month to heal, but it was definitely interesting to feel my body limited and not as strong as I like to be.

THEN in February a tree fell on our house.

Not joking.

There was a big windstorm and while we were at church (#blessings), our neighbor called us to let us know that the big pine tree in our back yard had snapped 20 ft up and fallen backwards onto our roof. When Kyle pulled me aside during a meeting at church, I literally crumpled to the floor. I imagined the worst, opening the front door to branches and birds sitting on my shelves. Thankfully that was not the case. The tree fell on the back half of the house and damaged the interior structural integrity (including breaking some beams from the roof in our bedroom). It was still livable (if not slightly draftier from some cracks in the walls) and so we initiated the insurance process.

We are still waiting for construction to start. In May they finally approved demolishing the siding and the lath and plaster walls of the rooms affected (which happened to include all bedrooms except for Kyle’s sister’s room). Each step has taken a month to approve and finalize and while demoing we stayed with my mother (to avoid the lead and asbestos abatement). The whole process has just been so ridiculously slow that I have grown semi-proud of my patience. I have learned that I can live like a vagabond and create home as long as I have my family with me.

I would love to wrap this up by saying “Thank goodness I am a minimalist because it made everything so much easier and I never have had to look for anything because I don’t own anything, blah blah blah…” Half my home is boxed up in random areas; the basement is a maze, the garage is cluttered, and I don’t even know what Kyle took to my step-father’s storage unit but I am probably looking for it. There is clutter and stuff everywhere. I keep having to buy new things because I am overwhelmed with even knowing where to look for the originals.

All this to say, I have been learning a lot. Learning about family, and education and minimalism and parenting and friendship.

All of this is incredibly hard and very lonely. Each week things change and our needs readjust with it and I can’t figure out how to ask for help. It is an exercise in learning how to bend with the wind and not break.

I wanted to write it all down, to make sense of all the swirling thoughts and how to explain this strange series of events that have tested my endurance and sanity. I’m afraid none of this may make much sense, but I have to start somewhere and this seems like a good spot.

Despite our home being a glorified tent and uncertainty ever knocking on our door, I am making the conscious choice to be happy. I am choosing to revel in gratitude for what is good because goodness is always there.

“you do not have to be a fire

for

every mountain blocking you.

you could be a water

and

soft river your way to freedom

too.

 

–options”

(Nayyirah Waheed, Salt 2013)