If Only for Today

I wrote recently about our non-move.  Moving from living in the downstairs level of this house while a very patient and gracious family lived upstairs; to living throughout the entire house once they moved on.  

I have painted some and have moved the furniture around, but my head has had a hard time wrapping around the potential temporary situation that this could be... yet again. When I was married and we lived in military housing, I was always in a place of awareness that each home was temporary. I jumped in to decorating with energy and excitement and had curtains and pictures hung before my kitchen was functional. Beauty, and comfort, and a feeling of 'home' was so important to me, and I made each home feel as much like mine as I could.  I got creative with what I had, and learned how I like to display my art and photographs.  I have thought over the last months that I would do the same thing in this house too… and yet here I sit.  No curtains, only a few sparse pieces of art hung, and not a single family photograph.  I am busier and a bit more tired than I used to be as I parent alone and work very hard to provide, but I know that those reasons alone aren't the issue.  I realized this week that my footing in my future is unsure, and it's been hard to allow my heart to really settle into this space when I have no idea if we will get to stay for a year, or three, or ten.  I'm getting on my feet as a single mom and figuring out how to make this life work for us, and my first step was to sign a year lease. I will push through and somehow find a way to make the payments month by month, but at the end of this year, it's possible that I will find that it is too much for me to handle on my own, and I need to find a place that won't stretch me as far, and it's also possible that the homeowners will choose to sell.  They are building a family, and the landlord business isn't as glamorous as it looks on television. But it's also possible that I will be ok, and they will choose not to sell yet, and I get to keep staying, and at the risk of sounding like the Perpetual Pollyanna that I am, it's also potentially possible that I could buy this house on my own one day.

So here I sit. In the tension yet again of what is and what might be… and try to muster up the motivation to pull the house together and make it mine.
I know part of the struggle for me is fear. I've faced a lot of that recently, as waves of different emotions cycle back and demand attention at various times in this process of moving on. I have struggled with anger (which for me is often an outward display of fear and lack of control) as I settle in to the powerful realization that this is my reality. My real, no escaping it, true life.  I am on my own. There is no backup when I'm tired of correcting the kids, there is no person to tap out to when I just can't be the one to make one.more.decision. There is no financial rescue with another adult to share all these expenses with, and there is no partner to laugh or cry with at the end of the day about the often ridiculous things that happen in this crazy parenting journey.  In many ways, I'm ok with this.  I've embraced it, and am blessed and grateful for the handful of amazing girlfriends I have who listen and encourage me regularly.  I have friends who offer to help or help get school supplies, or remind me that I'm doing a good job. For all of those gifts, I'm humbled and thankful.

This process of a dying marriage, and building a new life is planted on one common theme: I have zero control over anything.  All that comes my way is filtered through grace; and each dollar, each gentle and peace-filled moment are direct God given smiles and gifts to me as I learn that while I am alone… I can't do this alone.  I have to let people in, I have to ask for help, I have to allow my children to see me cry at times, seeing that my heart is sad too.  I have to embrace today, even if tomorrow we have to pack it all up and move to yet another home. I need to live with my heart all in… knowing that this is the only childhood my children will ever get- and the weight of making it as solid as possible rests on me.
So today, after a day of hiking and swimming in the river- a summer day built for childhood- I will come home and begin to pull out some photographs. To place our heritage on these walls, marking it as ours, even if only for today.