I have wanted to sit and get out my thoughts, but it’s been hard to find time. Either I’ve been exhausted or nursing the baby or it’s just been beyond me.
I am realizing how much it helps to talk to other people. Not just texting but on the phone or even in video somehow. Today we joined a Zoom call for the Bible study Zoe went to back in Columbia with my friend Elise, and when we joined the breakout group for Zoe’s class my friend Elizabeth and her two girls popped up. Zoe spent a ton of time with them in the weeks leading up to our move, and Elizabeth and her husband have both been such faithful friends in general, and I don’t know what came over me, but as soon as they popped up I almost cried. I miss them, and I miss my family, and I miss normalcy. I know that many people are grieving many of the same things. But in most cases people will again get to see the people they miss with the same frequency. We won’t. We’ll get to see some people we don’t really know more often, and we will almost never get to see the people we miss the most right now. So even as this time feels very strange and weird, I think some of the grief is still to come when we actually get to the “new normal” and we realize how many people we don’t get to see anymore.
But tonight the women at our new church did a Zoom call where we read through the first chapter of Ephesians and the human connection was amazing. It wasn’t as good as in person but it was better than nothing. I felt like an adult human person, and it was one of the first things I’ve done since we’ve been here that didn’t involve the kids.
Christian is also giving me tomorrow afternoon to myself. I think I’m going to hole up in my bedroom with the baby and I want to sit here now and figure out what I’m going to do. I don’t want to waste it.
This will be over one day. One day the boys will go back to school. Or maybe this will last even longer than they’re saying. I don’t know. I can’t put my hope in that. I’m just trying to take it one day at a time. I wish I could do more with Zoe. I think once Noah gets a little bigger I will be able to. I’m thinking about coming up with one “activity” each day—for her something with the alphabet, and maybe for the boys something more hands on like drawing a comic strip or something. I tried to add more “school” things this week and Monday was a big flop so I scaled back a little. We still didn’t do all the things I wanted, but I was at least consistent with math, spelling, and writing. We also borrowed a bunch of books from some different families at church, so now they have stuff to read.
We will make it through. Every day can be a little better. Or it can be worse and still be OK. Jesus is still in control.
grafo zoe // write life 