Ramblings and Ponderings

I read a few blogs this morning that I hadn't checked in a while.  It made me want to post again.  Maybe the key to me writing more is to read more blogs...  I've had bits and pieces of blog posts in my head for ages, but getting them out is always the hard part.  So...some ramblings...

I think I forgot that anti-depressants are not a magic happy pill.  When I first started on them and felt so much better at first, somehow I think I was a bit lulled into a sense of this was all it was going to take to finally get through this journey of depression.  Naive, oh, so naive.  And of course, just proof of how there is such a learning curve to all of this.  My hope is that I've just been overwhelmed after having all three kids home full time over the summer, and now that school has started up again, my introverted self might actually get a chance to breathe again.

But there's still this constant battle to balance, constantly weighing how I'm doing, and I take those three little pills every morning with my breakfast and wonder if they're really helping enough and if the side effects (which have faded to a certain extent but still show up every now and then) are worth it and consider if I may need to up my dose or do I need to switch to something else and what a long and challenging road this is.

And sometimes, (but not nearly often enough), I ponder grace.  How God's grace is and needs to be sufficient for me.  And how it is such a part of every day.  The little gifts in daily life that He uses to show me His everlasting love, the grace to forgive my children for just being children even when it drives me crazy, and the strength to ask for their grace when I so very often fail as a mother, His grace - forgiving me always and remembering to be thankful for His grace instead of feeling guilty for always needing it again and again for the same things.

Sometimes I wish life was easier.  And I know He never promised it would be easy, but that He is always with us and He has overcome.  But I always wonder why I find it so hard to get through this business of making it to the end of the day.  Which of course is half the lesson, to figure out how to stop asking why, accept it, find a way to rely on God's grace, and move on.

*sigh*  oh ramblings.  oh brain. 

Glimpses

  

 

Reminiscing

I was awake too early this morning.  I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't.  Then Nathan woke up at about 5, and while he very easily conked back out in my bed, I lay there tossing and turning and fidgeting.  So I got up.  I figured I'd have my morning coffee in peace for once.  And then I realized that this is the perfect time to blog for a change.  This is how it used to be, quiet mornings, me and my laptop, words flowing through my fingers through the keyboard onto the screen.  Oh the feeling of nostalgia.

You'll have to forgive me for a slightly more melancholy tone this morning.  Yesterday I finally came out of denial about the inevitable that's been coming for quite some time now.  This weekend will be my last visit to my parents' old home in Chatham, and I will be saying goodbye to my childhood home and my adulthood safe haven.

There are so many memories in that place:

forts in the backyard trees
rolling down the hill on wooden wheels
tobagganning into the fence so we didn't go into the creek
skating in the winter
Rocky
the tiny first kitchen
all the renovations
so many Christmases
the laughter
the tears
the fights
the games
the celebrations: birthdays, graduations, weddings, births
being a family

If you have ever had the opportunity to be at my parents' house, then you may know some of what I'm talking about.  Both the house and the yard are beautiful, truly a place to rest when the storms come and a place to relax when life brings joy.  I look forward to the new memories to be made in their new house, but the old house will certainly be missed.  I only hope that I can do half as good a job as my parents did at making my home with my little family a somewhere that is so loved.