This is my tribe. These are the ladies that have molded me into the wife, mother, sister, granddaughter, and friend that i am today. Without them i wouldn’t be. Each of them play a huge role in my life and my day to day and i’m so incredibly grateful for them. This may sound cheesy but God really knew what he was doing blessing me with this amazing band of women.
Last week we drove my grandma back home after six months of living down the street with my parents. This past winter her health took us on a wild ride, forcing us to lay down the law and keep her close until we thought she was ready and strong enough to venture back home. She is the most gentle, patient, go with the flow, strong, hardworking, kindest person I know and recently she told us, “I think I’m ready to go home!”.
And so with some reluctance and worry in our hearts we brought her home because after all she is doing so much better and she was missing her home and friends and life on her own. I told my mom the day we brought her back, “having never had to send a child off to college, yet, I think I may have an idea of what that may feel like”.
Honestly, this whole beautiful mess that we call life has me weak in my knees lately. Maybe this is my journey of what we tend to call a “mid-life crisis”. Whatever, it it may be, I’m having this strange relationship with age that I’ve never ever had before. And it’s leaving me feel emotional some days and others in a complete fog. Maybe it’s the simple fact that I’m in my mid-thirties and feel like I’m finally getting it. Like things are really starting to sink in and I’m beginning to understand more what this life is really all about, or in the very least what my life is about. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that I’m witnessing up close the aging of my grandmother and parents and having to care for them in ways I hadn’t before. And of course there is the reality that my girls are getting big right before my very eyes and I feel like I’m constantly running to catch up to it only to then stop and ask, am I soaking it all in? Are you truly living life’s moments?
It’s such a strange feeling to be actually living the life now that I had dreamt about during my days of high school and early college years. I pictured myself with a family of young children living in a home that I valued and loved dearly. While there are certainly details that don’t necessarily align with what I pictured then, the foundation of it is present. The core of it is happening. It’s here. It’s right now. I’m wife to my best friend and together we are raising our three young girls. That was the dream then, to be married to someone I loved and raising young children with them. The very part of that has come true. But then what comes after? I don’t recall picturing myself as an older woman, really. I don’t recall picturing much my kids growing much past the baby + toddlerhood years, either. For me, the big picture was now. And not that I’m not open to welcoming what is beyond the dream or images that I pondered and day dreamt about all those years ago, but that it simply feels strange to be here and experiencing the true value of it all.
Anyway, I am on this journey with age and it’s been quite a ride and now our nest feels empty without my grandmother close by and my kids are getting crazy big FAST.
Anyone else out there, on a wild ride with age?