Soul Singing

This summer's been a bitch. (Sorry, but I ain't gonna lie.) I haven't felt this rough emotionally since I came home from my Vietnam ordeal with Emma and then went through her RSV ordeal. (Emma=ordeal, is anyone else noticing a trend here?) I can't pinpoint one thing that has led to my melancholy, it's more a accumulation of things. Financial strain, a house full of nine people, trying to wrap up some loose legal ends from Darrell's death (yes, still.) They've all kind of worn me down into a uninspired, unmotivated mess.

I felt better a few weeks ago. I realized that I had to pull myself out of my pit and I was climbing at a pretty good rate. I started blogging more. I started working a on fiction writing project. I felt the fog begin to lift. And then the loose legal ends came to a screeching halt and I felt that all the pain and grief I have gone through for that process alone was for the benefit and profit of a whole bunch of other people who never felt any pain at all. Over and over I was told that I needed to proceed for my welfare and the welfare of my children, when the reality (after the chips have fallen into place) is that a group of lawyers and a health insurance company are skipping all the way to the bank while I'm sitting in an emotional maelstrom wondering what the hell just happened. I wish I could say more, and I promise I will when it is all completely settled, but let's just say I feel very used. All to the detriment of my melancholy.

Part of this legal mess was that I was supposed to be in Nashville on Tuesday, which ultimately got canceled, but me in my idiocy forgot to cancel the hotel and plane reservations. At 1:00 am Monday morning I realized I was scheduled to board a plane 15 hours later. I called the hotel and they said it was too late to cancel. The question was do I just stay home and pay the hotel anyway or do I fly there for a day and a half and get away. Alone. My boys and my mother all jumped right in and took over the small children and on Monday afternoon I was flying to Nashville. Alone.

I wish I could tell you I reveled in my aloneness. At first it felt strange, and then it felt wasteful and then I decided I was there so I might as well enjoy it. I was staying downtown so I walked around, took a trolley tour of downtown and even visited the Country Music Hall of Fame. (I'm not a country music fan but I can appreciate the history of it all.) On Wednesday morning, I got on a plane and flew home again. And I was emotionally back where I started when I left.

Sigh.

On Friday Julia and Jenna left to spend the weekend with Darrell's oldest daughter and her husband. Ross left to spend the weekend with his father. On Saturday morning Trace, Cody and Gauge were doing their own thing, so I found myself alone with Ryan and Emma . We went to the Farmer's Market and walked around and then we stopped at Starbucks and sat inside. The babies (I guess their not babies anymore) sat eating their cookies and drinking their apple juice boxes. I drank my mocha. Ryan, who interacts more and more verbally since his ear tube placement in May, was talking about everything. We talked about what color his juice box was (green), and what color the apple on the juice box was (red). He looked around finding red and green things. He called my chair a "sit down" and I told him it was a chair and he pointed to other chairs and tables and called them their appropriate nouns. All the while, Emma was sitting in her sit-down chair, smiling and munching on her cookie and squeezing her juice box all over her dress. I would try to include her with the naming of things but mostly she just wanted to be there and not have to work her brain too much. (No judgment here, I can relate.)

But as we sat there just talking and eating and drinking, I realized that my heart had a lightness it hadn't felt in such a very long time. I realized how much I missed my babies. The one on one interaction, the just being together-- uninterrupted and undistracted. I didn't need to fly away somewhere alone to find my peace, it was right there in front of me all summer. I was reliving what I had all last winter and I realized I craved it. I don't want the busyness and distraction. I want to just be.

The financial strain is still there. The house full of people is still here, although school starts on Tuesday. And the legal disaster is still there being sorted out, but there is still joy to be found in the simplest things.

And of course, it happened at Starbucks. ;)