This year for Lydia's birthday we pooled the money she was given from people and used it to buy a membership at a children's museum in the area... that doesn't create more clutter and is great for learning. It has been a great thing for a the family.
The museum has classes kids can take so I signed the girls up for 4 of them this fall. It has been a great way to make us pause to go to the museum and the kids have loved going to class.
The museum is a ways from our house and in the opposite direction of the place we normally go. However once upon a time when I was in college I used to work in this area.
As I was driving this route I was thinking about my times in this area, how much a learned, how hard some days were and how thankful I am for that time in my life even though often in college I just couldn't wait for my life to begin... often missing the beauty that was.
One our drive back we were listening to the Amy Grant Christmas playlist on Pandora... a lot of those are songs of my childhood. A song came on that made me think of a musical I was in once which then made me think of the people that were in that musical with me... how I miss some of them so much.
On Sunday the 4 of us were driving to church and the Switchfoot song "Were Gonna Be Alright" came on.
I don't remember which RMH stay this year, but one of them, that song became Jillian an my mantra. It was one of those songs that you sing over yourself even when it does not feel true. It was sometime this spring or summer when that became our song and we sang it when we would walk down the hallway to our room or when we would walk down the hallway toward the hospital. We needed those words filling our brains.
We were giving hope space in a time that felt crushing. Sometimes we need to do that. Sometimes its a song, object, or mantra that holds a space to say what you know is true even when the things around it don't look that way.
We have been at rmh all week for appointments... most of which have gone great... one was a bit frustrating (our hospital is FINALLY recognizing Jillian's hearing loss again... they did when she was a baby, then she knew how to play to games and wanted to get everything right so she guesses to be correct... yesterday I told her how important it was that she follow the directions and not guess... and just like at NIH, they found her hearing loss... but decided they are going to wait 4 more months to decide if they are going to fix it with a very simple surgery while in the same appointment offered us a big surgery that she doesn't currently need...) but the one thing I noticed was how alright I am.
I don't give myself time to heal... like from anything. I learned a few years ago that I need to give myself the first 24 hours home from a hospital stay to just be... but I am not always even great at giving myself 24 hours to process things... I want to just move on.
That has made this year hard when there has been nothing I could do to just get over our year. As much as I wanted to... my brain just could not.
I have seen a few times lately when I have been able to use things that I have learned this year to help others... one of them frankly I got really mad at God about because it meant one of my friends going through a similar situation and I was frankly pissed that He would let one of my friends go through something like this. Yes I was able to have empathy at a level that I would not have before because I knew what this situation felt like... but I didn't want it to be this way for her.
But I can feel in my body the ways I am more ok... does that mean that I am over it all... nope, and I am sure there will be times that emotions come through about this all, but man I am sitting here now and I can feel some of the weight has come off.
Were Gonna Be Alright
And saying that doesn't negate the hard of this year... it just says that the hard doesn't win! That eventhough hard comes... we are gonna be alright... even if that journey and the path does not look like we want it to, even if there is a lot of bumps in the road.
Yesterday that song came on again... it was just Jilli and I in the car driving to spend some time with friends... We turned it up and sang along... this year might have kicks us around a lot but Were Gonna Be Alright!
