Creativity is Dead

I fear that perhaps I am best suited to be a stay-at-home mom forever. I'm just too thoughtful. It works well for being a mom of young kids, not so much perhaps for the working world, and definitely not for having "adult relationships".

Last night while laying in bed, I asked my husband what he thinks happens to your soul when it dies. Does it float up (or out) to heaven? Are you instantly transported to heaven? Is it like waking up from a dream when you don't remember what happened but obviously some time has passed? I was thinking these things because who doesn't ponder death before bed, right? Totally normal. I was thinking about the number of people I knew who have died, and the number of people I was around right before death (I was thinking about the horrible "death rattle" which if you are unfamiliar with, thank God). I was in the room when my grandfather died, and I wondered if I had been paying more attention would I have noticed his spirit leaving his body? I was with my mother-in-law just hours before she passed, and definitely into the alive but not alive stage.
But regardless of my weird pre-sleep ponderings, my husband took awhile to answer and finally guessed that they just go into waiting because we are all waiting for the return of Christ. "So Heaven in empty, or just filled with pre-Jesus people?" and he eventually got annoyed with my questions. He replied that he certainly doesn't think about things that have no answer.
And that's where being a stay-at-home mom for life comes in. All I do is think. I think about this and I think about that. I think about them and I think about me. I wonder what if and why and where and how come. If I had done one thing differently, or made a different choice. I'll spend hours on wikipedia looking up bubonic plague and side effects of common drugs (like ibuprofen) and birth defects and celebrities. I have so many questions. I'm curious.
It seems that most of the world despises curiosity. Mind your own business.
My son just spent the last 20 minutes telling me about ghosts. You need to walk quietly or you pop their dreams, he tells me. And they definitely are "mean ones" who steal your toys when you are asleep.
This is the kind of world I can get behind. Not ghosts, but make believe. Questioning things. And even if its silly, then why not? Silly is better than sad. Make believe is better than anxiety.

Here's to the silly ones.

Saying Goodbye

Our next door neighbors are pretty awesome. When we moved in we weren't looking to really become chatty with any neighbors. It's just not part of my (introvert) personality. But our neighbors north of us were just hard not to like. They were retired folks, always inviting us over for a beer after my husband got done with work, welcoming me to stop by with the boys whenever I wanted to, even offering to watch them if I needed to run someplace. Granted, they had a lovely home full of things that little children would just treasure to break and smash, so we did most of our socializing outside. In the summers we would talk over the fence, once or twice we took them up on the offer of beer and conversation in their backyard while the boys tried to dig in their garden.
They would tell me, in a hushed voice, how they would wave to my oldest son when he peeked out of the blind during nap time. They knew he was supposed to be asleep, but he got such a thrill out of peeking and waving at the neighbors- "friends" he called them.
Then in November, our Neighbor Grandpa went to the hospital with bad back pain. Not only did he have a crack or some such horrible thing happen to his vertebrae, they found lung cancer. He underwent radiation and chemo, and they found it had spread to his bones. After several rounds of treatment, he passed away yesterday. I knew something was amiss, as the street was literally lined with cars for the few days leading up and preceding it. Neighbor Grandma called to let us know what had happened. What can you even say? I tried to remember what had helped when my mother-in-law passed. Just sorry, praying for you, here for anything you need. How do you go about life as normal when someone you have shared it with for the past 50+ years is gone? I can't even fathom.
Both boys are down with colds, coughs, one small fever. It makes me feel like an ass for the anxiety I feel over illnesses. I would take a cold, a fever, even throwing up over cancer. Any day.
I'm so sick of cancer that I could just scream.
I understand, sin nature, evil in the world, yada yada.
Right now I'm just trying to focus on how to say goodbye, to those just lost, to those lost long ago.
And I can't even...

Can't Wait

On Friday this chub monster will be 2 years old.
I can't even fathom how fast the time has gone by.

Now that's a lie.
I worked for the past year, so that made time go by a bit quicker. Cut to me back as a stay-at-home mom, and I remember why I considered part-time work again.
The.
Days.
Drag.

I hold my own pretty well until after lunch and nap, and then I have no plans. We don't have disposable income so I can't go shopping or cart them around the mall. Plus they are loud and hate to be confined by strollers, so the mall turns into an epic screaming battle anyway. Which other shoppers don't seem to enjoy.
Go figure.

I feel the day creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep by. I text my husband to ask when he will get home. I try to come up with a game plan for dinner (hahaha and by game plan I mean I avoid it and internalize all the guilt for not having started some organic slowcooker meal 7 hours previous). I text my husband again to see if he was just kidding and he will actually be home sooner (he doesn't have an office job so some days he gets out earlier than others, but not really as of late).
I told my counselor I was depressed. Maybe I'm going through a midlife crisis, I ask her.
But the reality is, and she was observant enough to note and reply back, I'm going through a crisis of faith. I'm at war within myself about what I believe and what I know, what I feel and what I can see. It's not that I'm doubting my faith, because I am a Christian and I am not for one second doubting that. Where I am having issues is that I am a grey girl (my counselor called it like she saw it and it seems to fit). I see so many variants of grey. My husband, he is a black and white man. Things are very clear cut for him. He may not follow the tenants he believes to the tee, but it's either one or the other. I have a hard time with the grey. The pastor says one thing, and I think- what about that? He says that Jesus is above all names that can be named, including cancer and autism. When we believe in Him and take Him as our personal savior, we too are above all names that can be named. Then I think- what about my mother-in-law? She was one of the most spirit-filled people I have ever met. She lived a life of walking with God. She was diagnosed with cancer and decided to believe fully in the healing of Jesus, of being above all names that can be named. She passed away 2 months before our oldest was born. It was devastating. When pastors say that believing and following God's word will put you above all names that can be named including cancer, I want to shout out FALSE. Don't get me wrong- I believe in miracles and I believe in healings. Throughout the Bible people are getting raised from the dead and healed and cured. Nowadays people can still be cured and healed, perhaps even raised from the dead. But that, in my belief, isn't up to us. It's God's will. If He wants us healed, we will be healed. If it's His plan for us to die, then that's what's gonna happen. When pastors straight out claim that by His stripes we are healed and above the name of cancer, autism, etc, maybe they need to explain further. If they mean something completely other than belief equals full healing, then I need the sermon to be dumbed down for me. So instead of crying in the back of the church, I can understand what they are trying to get across. When a Godly woman like my mother-in-law doesn't get a healing, when she leaves behind 7 children who have already been abandoned by their father, and a pastor wants to say it is because she needed more gospel? I have something to say about that.
There are some other issues that I have racing around my head that I am trying to grapple with, about marriage, about my role, about direction, etc. I'm just a giant mess.
And then I wonder why afternoons are so hard, and I'm just struggling to make it through each day until bedtime.
I know that time will pass in a blink of an eye. Before I can say it, it will be a year from now, my baby will almost be 3, and I will wonder what happened. Maybe I'll have my life in order; maybe I won't. I don't know this. It's like when I was nearing the end of my pregnancy. I knew that I would eventually have a baby on the outside. I knew that I would have to get through labor to get to that point. When you are in labor, it is horrible. There is pain, there is doubt, wondering if this giant thing can even get out, will they be alright, will I be a good mom. The waiting part is torture.
As a society we hate to wait. In fact we don't wait. We need faster internet, faster social media. Kids want to grow up faster. We get extensions because we can't even wait for our hair to grow.
The waiting game is difficult.
And right now, I just have to cope with waiting. This rough season of life will pass. I just have to know that on the other side will be some clarity, some path, some purpose.