All Is Grace

What more fitting way is there to begin the only post I’ve written in this God-forsaken year than by simply stating…the year?

I received notification from wordpress today that my annual website charge would be coming “soon,” and realized…oh. Yeah. I still have one of those. It seems something of a pointless location lately. But here it is. And…here I am.

I can’t say that I would be here had I not heard from WordPress, but nonetheless.

Hi.

More often than not, lately, I find myself with not much to say. I used to think through my days in terms of facebook status updates. Instagram posts. Thoughts and ideas to blog. Recipes and pictures to include. Maybe all of that was just vanity–the desire to be seen and to receive responses from people in a time of life where I felt very…unseen. Maybe I’ve just settled into this late-forties life and realize I don’t have all that much to say that’s meaningful. And maybe…my life has just changed so dramatically from that time that I don’t even really think any more. I remember when my days were largely filled with small children who didn’t demand much of my mental energy, but needed virtually ALL of my physical energy. I could think all day back then, and sitting down to type and unload some of that thinking at the end of a day became a refuge. They are mostly grown now, and over the past several years, they have absolutely consumed me mentally. What they haven’t consumed, the rest of my life has, and that is new as well. Going to work for someone other than myself each day, being in love with a man who wants to hear my words, becoming a step-mom to 5 more kids…my thoughts are rarely my own, and they are even more rarely fleshed out. This new phase of life comes with more mental silence, I think. So many thoughts I’d like to think, so little time with which to think them. A new stage of thoughtful desperation. You’d think I’d be here all the time.

Clearly not.

2020 is the year of my second divorce.
Falling back in love with the man I’ve always loved.
My second remarriage.
The shattering of my relationships with two of my children.
2020 is the year I became a Wife. A Beloved. A Cherished One.
An employee. Three times.
A breadwinner. Who helps to support two households.
2020 brought covid. So much anger and frustration. So much separation. So much distress. So much mental trauma.
New parents.
Healing for the child who despised me.
Growth for the one who held tight to me.
College and a first car and a realization of what love is for the youngest.
An announcement of the coming of my second grandchild.
New churches. New challenges. New home.
Deciding to show up every day for a job I hate.
Learning how to support my love through graduate school. Parenting. A job that is not his job.

2020 is the year that has broken me.
And made me.
It’s a year I won’t forget, and yet, in some ways, I’d like to.
And never will.

And it’s almost done.
Almost. But not quite.

And as we finish up 2 weeks of forced-by-the-state isolation tomorrow, and head back into The Life That Now Is, I have high hopes for the last 4 weeks of this year. I mean, why wouldn’t I? A new year looks like new hopes and dreams, right? And that’s what comes next! 2021!

I don’t think it could be more adventure-filled than 2020.

But maybe it will bring more words.