The Dance

We lost Eden to that stupid college again today.  My heart is heavy, and I started the morning a bit emotional. I know it will sound callous for a mom, but I usually sleep through (or am gone for) the actual leaving part.  I’m just not good at goodbyes.

We got her a warm new coat and boots before she braved the cold, and I didn't have to worry about her traveling alone - thanks to her roommate's amazing parents.

We had a lovely Christmas break, and I'm enjoying some extra time off creds to living in Kansas City.  (It's becoming quite popular, I hear.)  Right now, it's a frozen tundra, and everything is cancelled.  

I've been a bit in "sabbatical mode" since September, when I finally got my counseling licensure.  Not that I slowed down at all...I revved up my mom and housewife role, and Christmas (though remarkably peaceful this year, all around) was a LOT of work.  (I shared the load with Matt more than ever, and that was a success I intend to repeat!). In fact, I'm learning to let go of perfection and let people contribute on a whole new level.

I would have done this all myself just a year ago.  But I started re-reading Love and Logic (for professional reasons), and turns out I am absorbing the info a lot better in my later 40's than I did in my early 20's!!  My kids are getting really helpful, and I am not miserable and exhausted every day.   And the best news is...I hear it's GOOD for them!

I have been working on slowing down, cutting back, and being (overall) more organized. I am trying to be more wise with how I spend my time, and I am learning to prioritize my whims and commitments.  

You may actually hear me say "no" one day!! (Formerly known as "my husband says I can't.")   I've even learned to say no to my BIGGEST energy drainer...myself!

Aaaaanyway!  The morning, post - Eden's departure - was going well.  Matt was fulfilling his new morning duty of emptying the dishwasher.  I was working on a project I've prioritized to finish, and I decided to make it ALL more fun by turning on the record player.  (I've been resurrecting old electronics and media.). I pulled out one of my latest thrift finds, which happened to be a record by The Association.

I played the two songs I knew "Cherish" and "Along Comes Mary."

My head has always been a little bit "in the clouds."

Matt and I talked about that era of music, and my former, youthful (and literal) interpretations of "when all they wanted was to touch your face and hands...and gaze into your eyes." Matt has carefully educated me over the years, and I have enjoyed asking lots of questions!  (So...when the guy from the Eagles sings "so, open up I'm climbing in," he wasn't picturing a big pickup truck with a girl inside???)  Obviously, such hilariously, innocent confusion, isn't a problem these days - thanks to Matt, for me - thanks to the explicit banality of all modern media, for others.

It was during the latter song that I realized the record DEFINITELY did not sound right.  It's a newer, cheaper record player, which apparently it runs too slow.  Fortunately, (and why we really still engage with updated technology) the record player has a bluetooth connection.

I chose a "greatest hits" mix from the same band, and I melted with the first 5 notes - "Never My Love." 

  

Gratitude filled my heart and brought me to tears.  I saw a desperately lonely young girl at a Jr. High dance and realized, with the wisdom of my aged perspective, that sad, young girl could NEVER have had this moment she so desperately desired until now.

Because love - real love - isn't that spontaneous.  It isn't fickle, as fads and fashions.  It isn't fleeting, as the wind.  And it can NOT prove itself but over time.  Years and years and years of hiking, together, these mountains and valleys (through all terrains and climates) - neither giving up on this entity that has slowly grown into “us.”  Through painful births and excruciating deaths.  Through miscommunications and frustrations.  Through yelling matches at 2 am.  Through desperation and misery.  Through hunger and lack.  Through fullness and plenty.  And, ultimately, through commitment.  Never giving up on, never violating or disrespecting the purity and unity of, "us."

In the beginning...through thick and thin.

I made him dance with me (pajamas, robes and weathered bodies), and I squeezed him tighter than that Jr. High boy once squeezed me.  He didn't complain.

And I am filled to the brim with gratitude in the knowledge that there is nothing, now, I haven't given over to him.  He has earned and welcomed it ALL - the beautiful and the ugly; the successes and failures; the joy and the grief.  I am completely and utterly, vulnerably secure.  And that little girl - aching and insecure - she has been claimed and redeemed.

You never know what you will get when you enter my office.  The first person to step in was a mom who didn't even acknowledge the peculiar new set up.  😂

“It’s very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don’t dig you.” -Bob Dylan 

(We ended up on a 60's-70's hits mix) I would add to Bob's quote that it is also "very tiring having people tell you how much they DON'T dig you when you yourself don't dig you."  I've come a long way.