I wrote and rewrote this blog probably a half a dozen times.  I felt the itch to write about my upcoming doom birthday, but the words escaped me – the adjectives and verbs to paint a picture of how I felt fluttered at the edge of my mind refusing to take shape into anything remotely comprehensible.  Scared? Not the right word. Annoyed? Eh…not in the traditional sense.  Old? Wait, no, don’t got there yet. Failure? Achievement? Slow bloomer? Confused?

No matter how hard I struggled, the words continued to run away to the far reaches of the wall in my brain that signifies full on writer’s block.  The black, impenetrable wall loomed in my mind and my hope for therapeutic writing dwindled.  The blinking cursor on the screen mocked me.  I closed Word and chose “Don’t Save” five times.

You see, I still feel like adulthood eludes me sometimes. Sure, I own my home, pay my own bills, drive my own car, go to a job with retirement and health insurance…but there are certain elements of growing into an adult that I thought would be in my repertoire of achievements by now. Those elements are still drifting in space somewhere, sometimes so close I think touching them is possible, but when I stretch out my hand to grab ahold of them, they flitter into dust and scatter in the breeze.

Make no mistake; happiness abounds in my soul. The looming birthday just caused some temporary panic and forgetfulness.  The impending TWO and EIGHT in my mind facilitated the loss of letters and thoughts because I started to focus on what was missing, not what is there.  Then, I heard a song on the radio and just like the sun burns fog off in the early morning, the lyrics burned the wall in my mind down and I knew what I wanted to say, what I needed to say.

I am not where I thought I would be in life by now, I am somewhere better.  I didn’t get married young enough to have my 2.5 children by now, but I did choose to wait for a marriage that will last, that will stand the test of time and that will carry me into eternity.  I didn’t chase my passions when I was 18 like I should have, but now I run after them with fervor. Now, I possess an even greater appreciation for education and the impact on human lives achieved through knowledge.  Knowledge IS empowerment.  What did I gain from a nontraditional approach to life? Immense knowledge, and therefore, hopefully the power to provide guidance and education that will last the ages and help turn me, my family, my husband and my children into better people.

Perspective seems to turn things into a brighter light. The perspective provided from a song, for instance.

“When I get where I’m going, there’ll be only happy tears. I will shed the sins and struggles I have carried all these years.”

I’m not there yet and there are days that the journey hurts and leaves me feeling wanting.  I know with certainty though, that I am well on my way to “there.”  I am not exactly thrilled about turning another year older this year. What excites me though, is knowing that what is waiting for me in the year to come exceeds all expectations.  The tricky thing is, I have to first accept the passing of time and the turn of another year for me to get to what lies ahead. AND let me tell you, what lies ahead is so very worth the passing of time.

Lunch With my Grandparents

I wish I had words that would live up to how incredible my Grandparents are.  I don’t, and I often feel like I am doing them a disservice when I talk about them.  No one could really understand the blessing they are in my life, unless they had also been a blessing in your life. I am also completely aware that there are probably a lot of grandchildren out there who feel this way about their own special grandparents. Seriously, though, mine are the greatest.

This weekend we braved winter storms and bad weather to make a trip to see them.  I learn new things about them every time I am there.  I know it sounds selfish, but I love the time I have when I go up for the day and no one else is around but us. I don’t have to share them and I am able to hear every word they say in their soft-spoken voices, and I sit in the chair and listen intently and soak in the essence of them because I know they won’t be around forever.

My Grandfather has spoken more to me about his service in WWII in the past few years than he has in my whole entire life.  The wisdom that he possesses is endless and I always come away having learned something new, something incredible and something that increases my awe at his character.  I am so proud to be the granddaughter of a WWII veteran. I will never tire of hearing him talk about his time as a Marine. I will never be able to fully express my gratitude for his sacrifice. It is a debt that can never be repaid.

As disease and dementia have slowly taken over my Grandmother’s body over these last years, my heart has ached and my eyes have cried tears with her every step of the way.  She has good days, she has bad days. I was so lucky because Saturday was a great day.  She was the Billie everyone knows and loves all the way to her core.  She made jokes, she told incredible stories of days of old, she recalled ancient memories in her mind like it had never lost its sharpness and she filled my heart with new memories to carry with me as I left.

We talked about the rising cost of living, the fire that took their home, what it was like to come home from the war and even child rearing.  Grandpa told me he remembered when “50 dollars bought you a car you could rely on.”  I learned that Grandpa’s first car was a Model A Coup. It looked something like this:

He told of going to the mountains and driving around (our version of “mudding”) and getting it stuck.  He left for the war and when he came home, there was not much left of his beloved vehicle he left behind.  He told me that was a real tragedy because, “I didn’t even have a car to go sparking!”  To this statement, Grandma smiled slowly and her eyes held years of memories and love for her husband. I’m guessing she got over the no car thing.

As our visit was coming to a close, Grandma asked me when we were going to have a baby.  She thought she was up to 98 great grandchildren (which it is really only 82 but I didn’t correct her) so I told her I supposed that I would just hold out and wait to have great grandchild number 100.  My husband piped in and said, “OR we could have twins and that would be number 99 AND 100.”  I chuckled and said that Grandma would never wish such a thing on me. Once again, that smile and sparkle in her eye came forward and she said, “Oh yes, I would.”

After we had been there a few hours, Grandma’s coherence started to fade.  She spoke of a few things that were silly and nonsense.  Grandpa put his hand on her leg and said, “It’s time for your nap, dear.”  So, my always loving husband helped to get her into bed.  While he was doing so, Grandpa looked over and me and told me when she gets tired and starts to talk like that, he just doesn’t know what else to do.  Then, in a moment that stopped my heart and focused my world, he said, “But, I endure it here, because I just CAN’T leave my bride.”

Love like that, it’s real and it’s strong and it’s true.  It is something to seek after and attain in this life.  I cried big heaping sobs behind my sunglasses as we drove away. I cried for 20 miles.  When Doug reached over and put his hand on my leg, in a quiet gesture of support and understanding, I cried even harder because I am blessed with a man who I know will also never, ever leave his bride.  So I shed tears, for the memories I have, for the new ones we made, for the people they used to be, for the people they are now, for a love that I know will last an eternity, for the example they are in my life and for my own selfish fear of losing them in this world.

See? I told you they were amazing.

And then...then, we did it again

The last 4 ½ months of our lives went by like a total blur.  I felt like I was drowning at least 80% of the time.  At any given moment, if you walked into our home, you were bound to hear word vomit full of critical and literary terms, projected numbers of marketing research, close reading interpretations of literature many of you have never even heard of, curses of outrage at group projects, sighs of relief at passed tests and the occasional sob over the stress of it all, the difficulty of it all, the complexity of making life work with full time jobs and school and church and each other. All for the pursuit of a higher, higher education.

I know we don’t have the hardest lives out there, I know there are people who try harder, stress more, and even raise children amidst this chaos.  I salute them.  I barely survived last semester.  I did it; I bit the bullet and sacrificed sleep and TV programs and leisure reading.  I haven’t picked up a craft in months.  New recipes are a thing of the past and I haven’t baked in so long I fear I am losing my touch. BUT, I did it. AND I did it with a 4.0 – a feat I try not to brag about but am truly proud of.

Then winter break came, and while we still maintained the rest of our obligations, we breathed a little easier without school to worry about.  Getting older is harder on some days than others.  Shortly after we took our last finals we lost a professor who was near and dear to our hearts.  It made my heart ache for all the students who will never get the blessing of being his pupils, but it also made my heart soar with joy that we were both lucky enough to have had him touch and change our lives in a permanent way.  It made me sure that my pursuit of this higher education that will let me teach other young minds is the exact right thing to do.  Someday, I hope to change just one life the way he changed thousands of lives.  The older you get in life, the more people you lose, and it never gets any easier.

On a happier note, we were blessed with a fabulous vacation that regenerated our hearts, souls, mind and bodies and left me feeling more energetic and brave than ever.  So, as if last semester wasn’t tough enough, we registered for even more classes with higher difficulty levels, and…well, we will do it again.