tender memories

Friday was a short day.

Literally.  I lost three hours somewhere during that day.

I few to Indiana (via Chicago) to throw a bridal shower for Alex, my sister-in-law to-be.

Tonight, in looking for children's books to take home with me, I pulled out a few notebooks.  I thought maybe they were empty but instead found my thoughts from 2009.  It begins the summer I moved back to Wakarusa after graduation from SCAD.  

Looking through those thoughts which span that first year of small town life, I was reminded of the energy I put into it all.  There were so many little hopes and dreams on those pages.  It was full of the future I had conjured that revolved around this town.  There were so many adventures and good challenges brought into my life from this town and my place in it.  For those I am so grateful but there is still a tinge.  

That sinking realization that after three years I discovered this relationship was not going to work.  

So many of those dreams were blocked.  Some were torn down.  They were shifting my path.  To make that step away was so difficult.  It felt failure.  It was failure to know and realize that the life I had envisioned was not going to happen.  I think it was even more disheartening to realize that that life was not what I needed.  

I envisioned a new path and made it so.  I spent four months on that adventure.  It made my heart soar and grow so much but I knew that I had to go back.  I had to go back to Indiana.  I had more to do.  

Once more I had a discarded plan.  Though I knew in my heart it was so important to allow this change there was still a part that felt like failure.  In that feeling so many other moments of a life I had dreamed up came to surface.  It was how I saw it all working out when I thought about life.  That made for some turbulent days.  No one is as harsh to me as I am.  Conjuring up kindness and acceptance internally is a skill I am still working toward.

It was a dark winter between 2012-2013...just ask my mother.  

Something happened in that time.  I had found that even while I was sorting through my own mottled mess I had an ever clear purpose.  Clarity and joy came every day when I looked at the faces of my students.  I found Casey and we had good conversations about deep subjects.

Suddenly, a plan and a life I had never expected and envisioned unfurled before me.  It was one that was so clear that I should have seen it years ago but I was on the scenic route.

Here I am sitting on the bedroom floor.  Tomorrow I fly back to Portland.  

The idea of vision for the future is one I struggle to allow.  This year has truly enforced that life doesn't listen to plans.  I don't try to make too many plans any more.

I know for a fact that life will turn out way more incredible than I can plan.

Take for instance my deepest childhood desire to have a sister.  I wanted so badly for just one of these brothers to be a girl.  There were so many prayers pleading for a sister.  Now I see quite clearly that there was an even more insane plan in the works.  

I have incredible female friends that are sisters of my soul and our family has now become riddled with an amazing group of women that bring so much joy an happiness to my brothers' lives.  

Presently, I live with my best friend and have the true privilege of witnessing her as a mother.  Though, as pre-teens we did devise plots and plans to move to Florida, become doctors, and live together, reality is oh, so much better.

This I let permeate my soul as I pick through the relics of my past life.  The imagery is beautiful and the  hope exquisite.  

I will hold on to those as I continue to let the rest go.