onward and upward

Last weekend Ryenne and I painted she and Kate's room.  It is fun and bright and looks a bit teenager-ish.  Eeeek. 

They love it.

Through this whole process of moving and redecorating rooms, I am finding that Ryenne has a hard time with change.  For instance, she still says every so often that she misses our old van sooo much.  It's been three years and two vehicles ago for heavens sake!  I didn't know she liked it all that much anyhow.  It's just that "it was so cozy and comfortable" and she misses the color and. . ..well, you get the idea.

She misses her old room.  She misses the window.  She misses her old bed.  The pictures on the wall.  The bulletin board that she used to have.  And now, as we painted over the old wall color in the new room, it began.  "I mean, I like the new color, it's just kind of sad that it'll never be that old color again, don't you think?"  And the light fixture (ugly!) that I thought she'd be so excited to replace with something a little more hip?  "Noooooo!  That light has been there since I was itty bitty!"  (Never mind the fact that it doesn't even work.)

After we finished the first coat, we were wrapping things up and calling it a night when I overheard a conversation between Ryenne and Kate.  I smiled because it fits their personalities to a tee.  Ryenne was talking about this very thing, wondering if Kate was feeling a little sad too.  She was repeating her quandary, how she "loved the new color so much" but doesn't Kate feel a little bit sad about leaving the old color behind? 

This was Kate's oh-so-Kate-reply.  In her cheery, optimistic voice, she counseled exuberantly, "Onward and upward, Ryenne!"

This morning I've been doing a little cleaning.  (Which reminds me to report:  I've been doing a little cleaning!  This is good news on account that I haven't had the strength to do much cleaning of any kind for the past six months.  In fact, we've been paying someone to help me.  But!  Last week I felt like I was feeling enough pep to do it myself - Yay!  Another step upward, I suppose!)  Anyway, I was tidying up my room and vacuuming around the bassinet when I had to stop and face the facts.  We haven't used the bassinet in months.   Months and months, in fact.  You see, I feel like I didn't really get to enjoy Samuel's newborn stage. Everyone else did while I getting better. It's interesting that I went into his birth experience more determined than ever to enjoy his first weeks and months- every minute, every day. I was going to hold him and kiss him all I wanted.  What I'm getting at is that I realized a while ago that I haven't been able to bring myself to take the bassinet out of my room because that means the newborn phase is over.  This is silly, for I know deep down that keeping the emtpy bassinet in my bedroom won't change anything.  Holding onto it won't bring back that first month. 
 

Things don't usually go the way we plan, but that's okay, isn't it? 



I took the bassinet out to the garage today. 




I still have the Christmas wreath on my door.  Partly because I haven't gotten around to throwing it away, and partly because it means Christmas is over.  Helllloooo, you say?  It's been over for two and half months?  I know.  It's just that I went into this past Christmas season more determined than ever to enjoy the holidays with my family.  I felt like I'd been a little absent the entire fall season.  So for the holidays?  I was going to be there, dang it!  PJ's every day, all day.  Laughter and movies and memories.  I was going to soak up every second.

Things don't usually go the way we plan, but that's okay.


The wreath is coming down today.  Spring is almost here, after all.



Lately I feel a little undone.  Physically, I'm feeling much better.  More energy, which is nice.  I'm starting to feel like the mom I used to be.  I'm baking again, cleaning, and feel like our family is getting back into a routine of sorts (as much as you can with five kiddos).  As I stood in my laundry room sorting my mountains of laundry early this afternoon I thought about why I'm so stinkerish and confused feeling inside.  It's not the first time I've wondered, and heaven knows Courtney's probably tossed around the same thought a time or two himself.  Finally, it occured to me (or more likely, Heavenly Father helped it occur to me) that it's time to work on the inside of me.  We've all been so focused on the physical me for so long now (resting, healing, doctor visits, tests, doctor visits and more tests. . . .) that I hadn't really taken time to realize that emotionally, I've been through a little bit too. 

I think it's time to work on my inside a little.  Maybe that means more writing.  More sharing.  Admitting how scared I am sometimes.  That I remember that day when everything went awry.  That I think of it all too often and tend to push it away most of the time.  How I was fine one minute and the next minute I wasn't.  I really wasn't.  It makes me cry to write that. 


Everytime I go out, I am asked by a great many people how I am feeling.  (The girls say I'm famous because I almost died.)  If I've learned one thing, it's that people are so kind.  Very, very kind.  Most often, I hear how good I seem.  How my color has come back.  Just yesterday, someone told me that I "appear to have come through everything unscathed".  I've wondered about that word ever since.
I'm not unscathed.  I'm so, sooo lucky  blessed.  I laugh.  I walk!  I do what I am so grateful to be doing, and I try to do it well.  When I get tired, I pretend I'm not and most of the time that helps.  But I'm not unscathed.  I may always have some physical issues, it seems.   In many ways it's just a "waiting game"  as my doctor tells me- he says we just have to wait until the "next big thing".  He said he knew that wasn't what I wanted to hear, and I'll be honest.  It wasn't.  But I'd be a very silly, silly girl to feel picked on, don't you think? 

So what's keeping me from moving on, emotionally?  I'm thinking about that.  Maybe it's that I miss the old me.  I miss the me who didn't worry about "the next big thing".  I miss the days when I didn't worry about the future me, what I'll be like.  I miss the me that knew I could do just about anything I wanted - any project, any adventure.  I miss the innocence of feeling like I'd be there for my family, no matter what.  There was a moment where I realized I might not be, and try as I might, that's a hard thing to get over. 

I wouldn't change it, you know.  I wouldn't want to forget what I've learned.  In fact, I worry incessantly that I will forget.  I worry that I will take it for granted.  So you see, I'm a little bit like my Ryenne girl.  I love the new color, I'm just a little sad that I'll never see the old one again.  Sometimes when I talk about the new me, someone will optimistically tell me, "Don't worry, it will come back".  But I know something that no one else could possibly know.  Not because they don't try to understand, but because they weren't there.  They weren't there.  That might sound pessimistic, but I don't mean to sound that way at all.  It's just that there is a part of me that will never be the same, and I feel happy and thankful and sad and a little bit scared about it all at the same time.  And I see just now that my family might be feeling a little bit the same. 


Sometimes thing don't go the way we plan, but that's okay.  It's really okay.  I'm thinking about the things I would say to Ryenne.  I might tell her that the old colors and the new colors, they are both beautiful.  They each have their place.  One was a little more subdued, a perfect fit for the little girl she was.  The new color?  It's a little bit more bold, a touch more grown-up.  It's perfect really.  Even though we liked the color we once had, we don't want to keep it around forever, do we?

It's time.  "Onward and upward. . .onward and upward!"