feelings

4/20/2016
Well hello there, blog. Long time no see! The crazy-ness of moving is starting to simmer, thank the heavens. Last week I was caught in a tornado of moving and boxing and cleaning and un-boxing and, wait, was that only last week? It feels like it has been months already!

But here we are! I am feeling so many feelings this week. I am feeling peace and contentment. I am feeling adrenalized and intoxicated. I have this feverish rush that is a little bit against the odds. The odds being that between Jace and Beck these days, I honestly can't remember the last time I slept soundly through a full night. Between the night terrors and bottle weening and change of routine, sleep alludes me. We have downsized tremendously and are still wading through the depths of material things, making logical decisions on what we can get rid of and what we need to save. But amidst this all, the satisfaction that I feel is overwhelming.

When we lost James I felt broken. Every time I looked in the mirror I saw someone that I didn't know, someone who was defeated and beaten and dispirited. I was angry and anxious and life felt dark and bleak.

I still ride the waves of grief everyday, and I still miss him so much that my rib cage aches. I think about him at least a hundred times a day, I wear his shirts around on especially hard days, I carry his army name badge with me and I find myself constantly reminiscing about our childhood and crying in all of the worst times. Occasionally I have a night where I can't stand the pain and I spiral down the what's the GD point of life anyway!? tunnel. Honestly, I don't imagine that any of those things will ever go away. But the ache of loss, while still there, has changed. It is more of a tender, sad ache than the debilitating anvil-on-my-chest ache that it once was. I love him and I miss him and I still feel him in my life somehow. I'm not constantly drowning in the thick of my once overwhelming guilt and burden that haunted me from not being able to save him.

I can see that I am still taking baby steps towards the light, but the change in me that has come alongside this recent change in our lives is substantial. This new move has breathed life back into me. It feels like I have boarded a plane destined for a new country. And isn't that sort of ridiculous? We moved is all. Moving our family into an 800 square foot space of freedom. That is the only step we have taken. But even so! It was both the hardest and scariest step, and possibly the biggest step, towards our hopes and dreams for the future.

I would like to write more. I have so many thoughts that I want to share with the world and the wound feels scabbed over just enough that it might not be too awfully painful to write about soon. And so I will. I will write about grief and loss and what we have been through and what life means to me. I will write about hope and change and dreams and wading through the torrents of such a god-awful storm. I will write about my brother.

But not yet. Not today. Today I am just breathing and soaking up the sunshine and feeling grateful to be moving forward, even just a little bit. I am settling into newness and letting the days slow down around me, like a magnificent sunset over the ocean.

Oh and hey, while you are here, these are some pictures from our lovely warm Sunday spent brunching and hiking in the mountains!








































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