Windows and Mirrors

Isn't it strange how things seem to never change and it feels like sometimes they will never change and life will always be exactly like it is today?  I will always be wearing spit-up, I will always be young and in love, I will always be getting up in the middle of the night.  Then you wake up the next day and everything seems to have changed.  A slight shift of light and dark and suddenly what was hidden from my eyes and mind seems so clear or clearer anyway and I realize that perhaps things haven't been the same at all, they've been quietly changing and I just never noticed.

My life isn't counted by the calendar year.  New Year's hasn't traditionally given me any meaning.  I don't think its counted by my birthday either.  Don't get me wrong, I love my birthday, but it doesn't signify any meaningful change in my life.  You know what does signify change?  The school year.  I've kept track of my life, and then my married life, and then my family life each year beginning in September and ending in August.

This school year has been one of realizations so far.  Realizations about myself, about my husband, my marriage, my children (always I'm learning about my children).  I started this school year wondering what I was missing, because I knew I was missing something.  I couldn't figure out what it was.  I was obsessed with what trying to figure out the source of that feeling.  That was in the shadows, but I knew something was missing.  Unfortunately I still don't have a concrete answer to what that missing thing was.  I feel like the shadows seem to be moving so slowly, like when I would sit in my red carpeted front room as a child and watch the dust move between light and dark and the sun never, never moved.  The light seems to be moving slowly, but I've come to the realization that I don't need to know.  I need to be searching and in that search I just might find something of value to me.

Like finding peace within myself.  And joy in my children.  And rediscovering all the emotions in my marriage.  (How do you even name those emotions?  If you can then you're better than I.)  So what's the point of this post?  I don't know, all I know is that coming home from vacation, with a pep in my step, and love in my heart my home hasn't changed one bit, except for it totally has and I'm excited by the new vista.