Alignment

Here I sit in a dark room, being quiet since Jolene is asleep, and just reflecting on life and how much has changed, in me and in my surroundings, in the past year. I’m currently obsessed with a song by Laura Hackett called Lowest Place. Give it a listen:

It says:

You said there would be joy in the laying down
You said there would be joy in the letting go
You said there would be joy in the giving up my rights
and now I see

The river it rushes to the lowest place
the river it rushes to the lowest place
the river it rushes

There’s more to it but currently those are the words I’ve been letting sink in. I feel so much healing and change in me lately. It’s hard to pinpoint or explain but there’s a deep uprooting of insecurity, anxiousness, and hurt and a deep deep well of Gods grace being planted inside me. I’m still a bit wobbly walking on these new legs but much more content and happy and full filled in all the right things (God) lately.

I’m so done and over with wallowing in all the things I can for sure work at and change (my weight gain and things in my heart that need to go). I’m so done with putting up with this feeling of needing to do what’s right according to every one else. For so long I’ve been trying to please others. I want others to be happy for me in happy times and grieve with me in the down times, and that can be good, but what was happening is that I was letting how I thought others would react effect what I did and didn’t do. Like I needed to be able to prove myself or explain myself and there wasn’t room for stepping out on a limb and trusting God about something within that mindset. If I perceived or feared others would see my actions in a not so good light, well then I would quickly climb back down to safe and steady ground. I don’t want to think about how much time I’ve wasted by fearing man. Fearing what others would think of my decisions. I’m finally starting to realize that I can’t live my life that way. I can’t tiptoe around on egg shells throughout my entire life and I certainly can not fear God and man at the same time.  It’s one or the other. So I started lessening my circle of influence.

I’m also very much done looking at what others have and feeling like what I have isn’t good enough. And this one is a hard one. It’s easy to look at other people and wonder if what you’re doing is right. I find this most commonly with raising my daughter. I’ve never been much of the type to attach myself to one style or system or logic of parenting and stay at that extreme. I look at the options, I look at what God tells me in His word, I pay attention to the god-given mothering instinct put in me, and most importantly I have to look at the ever changing and growing of my daughter – because I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have to constantly be on my toes and shift with her as she grows. I’m also not under the mindset that if we are blessed with a second child that I can put on cruise control and do all the same things I’ve done with Jolene because Lord knows they will be completely different. In my mind there isn’t much time to relax and rest on auto pilot to raise a loving, respecting, joyful, and well nourished and rested young lady – read – not a complaint, I truly love and appreciate this life of raising my daughter. I’m really forming my own parenting style where sometimes I make all her food, and sometimes my sanity relies on a jar of canned summer vegetables from the store, and sometimes, yes I’ve fed my daughter bananas for breakfast and then again at lunchtime (gasp). What I’m trying to get at is I also sometimes have the tendency to look at other moms who are “doing it right” and wouldn’t dare put their child in a highchair, feed them from a plastic spoon (even if it is BPA free), and heaven forbid give them any canned baby food and I can start to feel unnecessarily inadequate as a mother. The reality is that I’m doing great, Jolene is happy and content and social 95% of the time, and our life is good.

I’m learning what is important and how to tune out what is not helpful and life giving and nourishing to my soul and keep what is iron sharpening iron, and what is encouraging, and loving. I’m not perfect and I’m for sure still in progress (always will be) but there is a for sure shift in me. An alignment with the only One who matters.

It’s been a while and I’m not even sure that anyone reads what I write here at all but here I am. This is more for me anyway.

Jolene is laying beside me sleeping. I like to call her Jols these days and can’t hardly believe it’s been over 7 months. It seems like every day something that fit her yesterday is now, suddenly, too short.

Life seems a bit hard lately and I’m a bit tired, all the time. I miss people who’ve made poor choices and don’t want anything to do with me so I feel silly. I just want to find a job but it’s the last thing coming to me easily. Jordan and I are trying to decide if he quits his second job if God will show up and provide and days like today where almost all our money is “spent” as soon as it’s automatically deposited into our account (don’t worry, got enough groceries to last two weeks) make me think we’d be crazy to quit and just assume everything will work out. Or are we crazy not to trust. hmm.

Sweets

I’ve grown to love the routine of nursing Jolie, even at 3am when getting out of bed is the very last thing I usually want to do. This dear daughter of mine is sucking away at her middle of the night feeding while I admire the cutest parts of her personality that come out only when she’s doing her favorite task. She seems to smile while sucking and she’s never quite as content as when she’s here with me. In the hospital they taught me to move her arm around in circles, kinda like if she were swimming, to gently get her to wake up and continue eating. The other thing is that she, more often than not, skips all early hunger cues and just jumps straight to the screaming- even after having been nursing for an hour and you stop to change her diaper so transitioning to going back to sleep is easier. In the rare moments she decides to tell you she’s hungry without screaming, it’s the cutest thing, this is also true anytime she’s dreaming about eating. She’ll smack her lips while moving her arm in that circular motion, while also putting the opposite arm straight up in the air- because I’m always putting her arm up so that when I turn her towards me it’s in the right position for nursing.

I like to call her sweets, even though she seems to cry so much more than other babies and it’s been harder than expected dealing with her loud and fiery personality. No one can say I wasn’t warned though, 20 minutes after birth the nurse was already telling me that she was strong willed and maybe the other words used were high maintenance… I like to speak good and encouraging words over her feisty self because one can be sweet and wonderful while also feisty. I love who she is just the way she is.

Tonight is the first Friday night Jordan hasn’t had to work since early in our marriage. His schedule changed and even though it’s a hard change, I can sure get used to having every Friday night and Saturday morning/afternoon spent with him and Jolie. Tonight we took a walk and ate hamburgers with his parents. I sat outside a little while rocking Jolie in the beautiful weather and I have to say it was a proud moment as she lay in my arms so content with the breeze hitting her face and then fussed as I went inside. For the first several weeks of her life I was very worried she’d hate the outdoors since she fussed anytime we were outside. I’m looking forward to spending lots of time learning to garden together and exploring nature and doing one if my favorite things- laying in the grass on a hot summer day.

This momma is content- and at 4:30am very sleepy now. goodnight.

A whole lotta music

I knew that I wanted to have music playing during parts of the labor and delivery of our sweet Jolene.  I knew this at the start of the pregnancy and thought long and hard which songs I wanted to play.  Music has always been really important to me and I usually remember different seasons and times in my life based on the music I was interested in during those times.  For instance a few days before Jolene’s birth I got caught up in listening to a new, live album that Denison Witmer is soon releasing.  You can listen to the entire album on his bandcamp and that’s exactly what I did.  And I cried happy joyful tears because his music reminds me of falling in love with my husband, Jordan.

Several days before her birth I settled on a play list I was happy with and burned it to CD. Labeled Baby. Some of my most favorite music was on that disc – all calm, mostly instrumental (but good instrumental from the movie soundtrack Sweet Land). Patrick Watson, Enter the Worship Circle, Bon Iver, Andrew Belle, Joanna Newsom. Perhaps one of my favorite songs was this:

To Build a Home by The Cinematic Orchestra (sang by Patrick Watson)

I would hear this playing during labor and know why I was doing what I was doing. We were building a home, something richer than any physical house could be. “Out in the garden where we planted the seed, there is a tree that is as old as me” – ever since hearing these lyrics I’ve wanted to plant a tree when each of our children are born. Now to see if my in-laws will let me plant a tree in their yard on this first year of Jolene’s life.

When I hear the music that played on Jolene’s birth day I remember everything that was so wonderful about that day. I also like to think she feels a bit more settled and calm when I play these songs for her to hear. I never want to forget these little parts of her life. I never want to forget which songs were playing when she was born either. I added the music on to CD in random order. Turns out, at a time of a lot of pushing and her birth so close the song Winnowing the Wheat by Mark Orton (Sweet Land soundtrack) was playing. The song is a bit more intense then the others on the soundtrack. It plays during my favorite part of the movie that has a lot of meaning to me. I could describe it to you but I somehow think it best for you to just see the movie. Here is a trailer:

Then when she came the song Woods by Bon Iver came on.

In my mind there was one song that I wanted to play when she was born. I’m not sure why but maybe because it’s one of the most meaningful songs to me. It didn’t play right when she came out BUT at the time where Jordan and I were admiring her and so thankful for this new little girl that we FINALLY were able to meet and see with our eyes the song played. Your House by Enter the Worship Circle was the song. Not a big deal to many but to me it had and still does have meaning.

We sing as people God set free
You dream the very best, You dream
and then we know, we know
a home is what we make with You
You love Your children, yes You do
we are Your house, Your home

There are things I want my daughter to know, to care about. I want her to care about the poor and the broken. I want her to know that her home is in God. I want her to know that loving God and loving others most times looks very different than just “being a christian”. She will be her own woman with her own passions, desires, and dreams but I want her to know what loving others looks like and man do I still have a long way to go.

Then…

One great thing about Jordan’s job at the school is that he had Spring Break completely off and with the knowing that we wouldn’t be lacking any paychecks. We’ve never had that before and it was so nice – even better that his spring break landed a week after Jolene’s birth. It was such a huge help to have him up with me at night and helping rock her to sleep. Much more than that it was a sweet time of bonding as a family for us and a time where I would look at Jordan and know exactly why I love him so much and why this man was and is the only man I ever wanted to marry. We kinda got into this groove of him keeping me company at night while I nursed and to keep us both awake we’d watch tons of you tube videos and talk about our passions. One video that we found during that sweet week was this by Jenny & Tyler called Faint Not. It’s currently a favorite and yes, I listen to it over and over again until it’s words are burned into my memory.

Other videos we watched, probably way too much during that week:

Bon Iver singing For Emma, Forever ago (take away show by Lablogotheque)

and I can’t embed the Radiohead video for Lotus Flower so you’ll just have to follow the link.

I think that’ll give anyone a good dose of youtube for now.

leading up to the great birth

Here I am, alone in my apartment all except for this sweet sleeping girl all curled up on my chest.  I like having her here with me.  I sit and picture her still inside my belly and wonder how she ever fit in there even though she only weighs one ounce more than her birth weight.  I waited so long for her to be here and now she is – it’s funny how that works.  I thought about who she was so many times, only having an inkling that she was in fact a she but while still in the womb she could have easily been a he and I would have never known the difference.  I think about the day she was born often and I feel blessed that it is such a rich and joyful memory to me.  There were many details of the labor and delivery I knew I couldn’t possibly have control over but I wanted everything to go a specific way.

The week leading up to the birth I lost all interest in talking to people in general.  I was getting tired of people looking at me like I was going to go into labor right in front of their eyes – all the while I myself was feeling no different than I did at month 7 (except for the growing belly).  I thought for sure I’d never go into labor and I didn’t want any more reminders that I was no closer that day then I was the day before (or at least that’s how I felt).  It was 4am on Sunday morning (the morning after the “super” full moon), March 20th, that I had my first contraction and by 11:00am when we were trying to decide about going into the hospital I finally felt as though this child was about to be born.  The bags had been packed and waiting for weeks (literally weeks).  The house virtually spotless because I always like a clean house when going away for longer than one evening and I had nested a week before the birth and finished everything with much time to spare. I never want to forget how I felt that day (well…  I’ll be fine to forget the pain).

Driving to the hospital while in active labor, hoping they wouldn’t send me home.  Not being able to find a close parking spot and instead walking further than desired with what seemed to be all the belongings you’d need for a weeks vacation.  Stopping in the hallways to make it though the contractions.  Sitting in Triage for two hours waiting for them to let me get to a room (and all I could think about was getting “comfortable” in the tub). Our amazing doula, Katie, arriving right when we got into our room.  The midwife hanging twinkle lights above my bed so I didn’t have to deal with the harsh hospital room lights.  Jordan holding my hand tightly during each contraction and forcing me to sip water in between.  Realizing I was going to be strong enough to go without medication for my new little baby.  Feeling Jolene move and hearing her good heartbeat throughout labor.  Being able to change positions and move around the room as my body felt the need to make a change and shift around.  Finally becoming aware that the midwife was going to let me start pushing and feeling like I was pushing for hours and hours (only to find out I only had to push for 48 minutes).  Knowing it was finally almost over when they let me touch the top of her head as she was crowning.  The songs on my play list that played during labor and birth. Oh – that feeling when she comes out and they lay her straight onto my belly.  Jordan announcing that she is a girl! Feeling more in love than ever before with my husband Jordan as I watch him be dad (he would prefer to be called pappy) to our little girl.

Man, I love him and I love her.  I’m feeling very blessed by my little family.   I just don’t want to forget a thing about this new life laying here on my chest.



Welcome March

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here.  My main reason?  Because I’ve reached my limit for the photos I can upload to wordpress and I haven’t brought myself to the point of figuring out a different solution.

I can’t believe tomorrow is March 1st and I will officially be 37 weeks pregnant.  It seems like it’s taken forever to get to this point and I’m trying very hard to just enjoy these last few weeks of pregnancy (or however much time I have left) and not think too much about going into labor but I really really want to go into labor soon!  I probably should be like everyone else who wants their baby to stay in as long as possible to come out in the best of health but I feel this baby is strong and healthy and really – I have no control over it anyway so I guess I can wish for it all I want and it’s not going to change anything. Today we had our last ultrasound.  I originally wasn’t interested in having another (we technically should have gotten 4 ultrasounds over the last 4 months since our 20 week US but I said I’d only do one – maybe two) but the midwife asked if I’d be willing to have a second growth ultrasound so I agreed that would be just fine.  Turns out this baby is doing more than fine off that single artery umbilical cord and is weighing in at over 7 pounds with still at least a 1/2 a pound to gain each week!!  A little frightening but I’m excited for our little chubbawubba baby and just happy the head is measuring average.    We also could tell the baby had hair!  I’m so excited.  I always pictured our little one with a bald head but that will not be the case.  We also saw baby doing what the tech called “practice breathing”.  SO CUTE.  It’s really interesting getting to see an ultrasound this late in the pregnancy.

Today I purchased a few last-minute items (nail clippers, oil for cradle cap, baby wipes, but I held off purchasing newborn diapers – we might pick those up on the way home from the hospital just in case I deliver a 8+ pound baby).  I’m feeling a huge urge to hurry and get everything in order, a bag packed for Jordan and I at the hospital, the curtains and mobile finished *hopefully tomorrow*, and the last of discussion topics for Jordan and I to talk about before baby comes.

This feels a lot like just a bunch of rambling – and maybe so…  Maybe next time I post will be to introduce baby   Hope everyone had a great February!

baby room part one

Lately I find it hard to concentrate on much else other then this baby I carrying around everywhere in my huge belly!  I am getting everything ready for him/her as if he/she is coming much sooner than will actually happen.  I am afraid there will be nothing left to do and I will be bored for the two last months of pregnancy but nevertheless I’m charging and setting up the monitors, everything has been washed twice, folded, and now has a spot in either the baby room or bathroom and I’m running out of things to work on before the baby comes.  I’m sure I’ll find things to do but I’m just not sure what that is yet.  I’m sure most moms will tell me to enjoy this time because it’s soon to end for a very long time and whether or not that is the advice you’d give, I’m taking it!

I can’t wait to meet this babe!  For now, I’ll just continue to busy myself with tasks here and there and I hope to get lots of reading done as my very full job ends soon (not to mention getting back into the swing of things photography related).

Here is a little craft I’ve been working on especially for baby.  There is a slight owl/tree theme emerging in the baby room but in true form to the way Jordan and I are you better believe there will be plenty of color (since we don’t know the gender) and nature infused into the room…  I thought for a week or two about having everything matching, color specific, and more trendy/polished look but then I realized how that wasn’t going to be natural for me so I’m going with the flow.

Stuffed owls for baby.  Hand stitched.  I’ve had this idea in my mind for a while and been waiting for the perfect project to use fabric I picked up at the Absolutely Art Re-art Swap and a little antique store in IL.  They turned out exactly how I pictured them!

Then below are photos of the smaller stuffed owls (in process and still need to be hung) for the mobile above the crib. 

Apparently I ran out of room for loading photos here on wordpress and I’m too tired to look into ways to post more of the owl photos.

Do you ever feel caught in this place of not knowing how to bring your dreams into reality? I’m very much struggling with that now and I’m not sure I have the sort of personality it takes to make it all come together. I miss the Madison Boiler Room, living in the Winnebago house with lots of people around my age, shared meals, and morning/evening prayer with friends. I want these things to be regular in my life but where I live doesn’t feel conducive to that lifestyle. But where I live is where God has us and what we can afford. I want to just start something but I worry no one will come. I feel like the people in Madison don’t just drive 25 minutes so how do I ask my friends to come when I believe the constant struggle will be how far everyone must drive. I should add, coming from a city where you have to drive at least 25 minutes to really get anywhere this seems (to me) like I’m not asking much of people (but I’m afraid I am because there is a different culture of people here). Especially when they’ve all moved on. Maybe a new group of people? But it’s not the same and I like keeping my investments in the same place. And aside from it all- I don’t have one of those personalities that people cling to and follow. I feel I’m sort of awkward. I know what I present is just a lot of excuses and a forgetting (or so it seems even though I’m very aware) of how big our God is. Life is hard- I wish more had stayed to stick it out through the hard so I didn’t feel so alone in these desires and this pursuit.

Faithfully Present

I’ve been editing a lot lately after my trip to Colorado and anticipating more work coming up very soon that I need to clear the way for.  Catching up is what I need to do here.  I usually go through phases of only being able to focus when I’m listening to specific music depending on what I’m editing and what my mood is and then sometimes music is so distracting and I need to listen to words.  To someone speaking – or many people speaking such as in a coffee shop.  Lately I’ve been stuck on this teaching recently taught at my church Damascus Road about being faithfully present.  I’ve probably listened to the same teaching about 10+ times, that’s how much it’s resonated with me and how much I connect with the one speaking.  For the summer the church has been teaching more topically.  They’ve undergone leadership changes and so on that they are just getting their barrings straight.  They’ve been teaching on core values the church holds and it’s been really good for me – especially since I’ve grown up in the church, memorized scripture for years and years and years and although I love a teaching through the Bible I also love a topical teaching now and then that brings me back to all the truths of the Bible I know so well.  I feel like I know the Bible enough to be able to connect what is being said with what I know the Bible says.  Anyway – For the past year I’ve really been processing and trying to live out better the reality that everyone wants to be seen, heard, and known and how can we love one another better by knowing that?  I was sitting here listening while editing (the combo is quite perfect for my ADD mind here) and I felt compelled to type out this section, partly to burn it in my memory and also to remember what this is what I want to work on and this is what I want to live out in my life very practically.  The other day I was at a coffee shop, working on photos, and listening to this message and I got to thinking about it – posting this on my facebook wall

It is hard to be fully present with people daily. Like when ordering coffee- do we really see them? I need to work on this. Be here now.

It’s true…  It’s so hard.  When I was ordering my strawberry lemonaid drink I felt a pulling to really see the woman on the other side helping me.  To really look her in the eye, notice her, say thank you and really mean it rather than say it out of habit.  I still have a long way to go and I need to work on this every day no matter how hard it is.  So anyway – here is a lot of what he, Greg Marshall, spoke at church a bit ago:

“All of a sudden you realize that what this is really about is not you getting what you want from up there.  Really!  Seriously.  That’s so secondary to the faithful presence that we turn to God and share with each other.  It’s so powerful to feel like you’ve just been seen and appreciated… What does it look like for us to be faithfully present to each other?  … But what if we as a church would actually grow in being faithfully present to God in our individual lives and in our families and as a community and eventually it’s just how it flows?  … When we know how to love each other here then we can love each other out there and not just other believers but other people.  Faithful presence seeks to see other people flourish without an agenda attached to it.  Partnering with God and the restoration of creation, the restoration of lives within a biblical understanding of reality but not necissarily always tied to “I need you to make a decision for Christ to or this was meaningless”.  It is not meaningless to help somebody else. You are partnering with God. “

Then he talks a bit about being a tutor for writing and this college boy came in and needed help writing his paper.  His paper was all about why God doesn’t exist.  He said he struggled at first to know what to do – should he help him write this paper, he wondered?  Then deciding to go ahead and help him write a better paper about why God doesn’t exist and just be faithfully present with this boy and this is what he says about what happened…

“In this really strange way I built this relationship with this guy where eventually I could tell him about my faith but there was a lot more substance to it because he could see that I was there for him.  He wanted to know “where do you stand on this?” How do you get this across to a people like us who have been so enculterated with the fear and anxiety.  I’ve heard it called the evangelical anxiety.  We’re so anxious. … Be present.  Trust that there actually is a Holy Spirit who’s working.  And trust that when you are seeking somebody’s well being and your’re unashamed of the gospel but you’re seeking that flourishing in that person’s life oppotunities awaken to talk about why you’re doing that and where that’s coming from and why it works and all that.  But there’s just this power behind being faithfully present. Unashamed to speak it when it’s time but know that the speaking of it is not going to have traction unless the gospel is a reality with our lives wrapped around it.  If it’s just language – an idea wrapped in language that we try to convince people of it doesn’t have traction.  It has to have life in it.“

This resonates with me – and I love that it’s not watered down at all.  “Unashamed to speak it when it’s time but know that the speaking of it is not going to have traction unless the gospel is a reality with our lives wrapped around it.”

What do you think?

transition

It didn’t quite hit me before like it has in just the last week.  The realization of what’s going on and I can feel myself fighting it all the way.  You see, the group of people who in part Jordan and I moved here to Wisconsin for are all scattered.  Sure that wasn’t the only reason we came here but it was a decent amount of the reason and something that made us feel less sad when leaving Colorado.  Right away, upon moving here two years ago, my idea of who I would get to know and hang out with was altered.  All I knew was that there were specific people and friends of Jordan’s of whom I met while visiting back in 2006 and 2007.  I wanted to hang out with them a lot and know them but by the time we moved here they were all scattered, in different friend circles, and relocated.  Ok, plan B – just get to know and build friendships with those in my immediate circle of location and expand if any opportunity presented itself.  Well, I believe plan B was better than plan A ever was.  It may have taken me a while to get to know friends and open up to them but after about a year and a half of working on it (even when I felt like giving up – which happened a lot more than most know) I knew that I loved my friend group here and that I didn’t want to leave them anytime soon.  Then it happened, one by one they admitted their plans of moving (and I’ll be the first to say that Jordan and I were sadly the first that come clean with our plans to move, even though it was a decision that saddened me because I didn’t want to let go of my friends here).

It just so happened that right among the transitions where most of our friends were moving away I found out that Jordan and I were expecting a baby.  This excitement left me blind to what was going on around us.  Of course the realization finally set in (it always does), and hard.  I had just returned from my quick business and family trip to Colorado and I was grieving.  Jordan didn’t quite know what to do with me when every evening when I’d get home from work or being away I would cry and cry and cry.  I just couldn’t stand it.  I missed my family and friends that I barely (if at all) got to see while in Colorado AND I felt this huge gaping hole here in Madison.  Even though there are still a few friends here in Madison that haven’t moved away it seems as though they’ve moved on quickly to new circles of life and I hardly noticed in my morning sickness (all day long) fog.

As I sit here I’m noticing a pattern, one I didn’t see before.  It’s why I’m now thinking that none of those “Plan A” friends worked out in the beginning.  You see, Madison WI is a very transit place.  It’s a big college town so of course there are students that move here for a brief time then move on and sometimes this extends out to non-college groups and people.  It’s only just today that the reality is setting in.   In my limited knowledge and scope of perspective, there seems to be a pattern here in Madison of either leaving the city physically or moving on to new people when transition occurs.  I would hope that’s not how Madison is but it’s the only thing I see happening currently.  I’m not used to it and I’m not sure if I ever want it to accept it as a norm. I’ve always been known to be good at keeping in contact with people when they move.  I mean seriously – I kept my elementary school pen pal (I think it was 3rd grade we got these pen pals) until Junior High – long after the required one letter our teacher asked us to write.  I met a guy at church camp probably my freshman year of high school (or sophmore) and we emailed nearly every week for at least 3 years.  AND the most difficult of all I kept in contact with my husband (then just friend) from my senior year in high school until he moved to Colorado to be engaged and plan our wedding (about 7 years) and I’m pretty sure that if I wasn’t so consistent to keep up the contact I probably would be searching for Jordan Espedal on Facebook right now instead of being married to him.  While this is all great and dandy I feel a lot of weight and pressure that comes with that.  I can’t possibly keep that up my whole life with little or next to nothing effort on the other end.  I currently have two friends that I try and talk to over the phone once a week but there’s effort on both sides so it works really well. It’s not within myself to just give up on friendships.  I’m the type that doesn’t agree that most friendships are seasonal (even though I’m sure all the wiser are smirking and laughing at that comment).  Why should I ever let someones idea of what can’t be done predict my life?  But maybe they win this time?  Could this be what silently feeds my anxieties?  “I have so much to do, I’m overwhelmed AND I need to call or email so and so since I haven’t talked with them in a couple weeks”.

I’m not going to pretend to have an answer to all these questions or to make anyone believe that I am happy about how many of my friendships are slowly becoming a think of the past.  I guess I mostly just wanted to process this out loud and then be able to record how I am feeling these past few weeks.  I’ll just leave these thoughts with thankfulness for my husband, my parents and family, Jordan’s family, and the few friends that are constants in my life and hope that’s enough to carry me though while I figure this all out.