evening thoughts or why I can’t get it together this month

Two weeks before Christmas I started a bathroom remodel project.

It was supposed to take two weeks. Maybe even finished before Christmas.

The mirrors were hung this week and the towel hooks are in place and it’s April.

So goes everything in my life.

(Side note: I adore the finished product and couldn’t be happier with the whole shebang. It was worth the wait.)

Last week was Break Week and I didn’t even come close to finishing my long list of MUST DO items.

I think the only mantra in our house lately has been the one that has all of us looking at a clock and exclaiming, “Are you serious? It’s already blah blah pm???”

London took a senior trip with her dad last week to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio and I cried myself to sleep the night before she left.

It wasn’t her actual departure for a fun trip that had me in tears, it was the whole tip of the iceberg reminder that so much change is knocking on my door. And she’s not a kid who has been a camp-attender, sleepover-aficionado kind of kid. Ever. So, as my sweet friend Jo reminded me when I was expressing my utter sadness, I just haven’t had a whole lot of practice in sending London off anywhere.

We have four full weeks left of school. Four weeks left where five of my kids sit with me at the kitchen table each morning as we read the Bible and share a poem and start our days over hot tea and coffee and cereal and oatmeal.

I’m feeling ALL the things ALL the time and I have decided that the human condition is one of a steady dichotomy because I am in a constant state of BOTH AND with every breath I take.

I am BOTH excited for London and her bright future AND I am devastated that my predominant role in her daily life is fading. I am BOTH reveling in the joy and laughter and chaos that teenagers bring AND I am grieving the unity and tenderness and togetherness that the early elementary years held.

In short,

I. Am. A. Mess.

Please send sad songs, sympathy and hot tea.

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