Hope when you take that jump
You don’t fear the fall
Hope when the water rises
You built a wall
Hope when the crowd screams out
They’re screaming your name
Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay
Hope that you fall in love
And it hurts so bad (Yeah)
The only way you can know
You gave it all you had
And I hope that you don’t suffer
But take the pain
Hope when the moment comes,
You’ll say
I, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places, the things that I did
Yeah with every broken bone
I swear I lived
Hope that you spend your days
But they all add up
And when that sun goes down
Hope you raise your cup
I wish that I could witness
All your joy and all your pain
But until my moment comes
I’ll say
I, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places, the things that I did
Yeah with every broken bone
I swear I lived
— Songwriters: Noel Patrick Zancanella / Ryan Tedder
An amazing song if you haven’t heard it before – I suggest the Jordan Smith version from the voice.
And as we are entering a new phase of life with Kealey off to college, and a different looking kind of school year(life) due to Covid, it’s been on repeat for me.
Man, dropping your kid off at college….
It’s like all this ramp up of “getting ready” which is just stockpiling stuff that you’re like, I swear you have three of those in your room right now, you need new ones? And they’re excited so you’re excited but you’re kind of not excited because it means they’re leaving you and going out into the great big world on their own…and you’re just not sure how you got here. To THIS. To your “adult” child picking out her own washcloths and bedding and hangers and just being ever so much more cooler than you were at her age and like – weren’t you just her age? Wasn’t she just pouring a whole bottle of baby lotion onto herself when she was supposed to be sleeping?
Being a mama has always been the best thing I’ve ever done with my life. And it feels like – man, I’m 1/4th of the way done with this job and I kinda like it. Sure, the days are so long, but the years….the milestones….the memories….
I’m preaching to the choir, I know.
But it feels so strange.
I knew it was coming, and I was so PROUD of her for choosing her college, for working her butt off for all her scholarships, for how grown up she was about the whole thing.
But the dropping her off, and leaving her with one last hug, hoping I gave her all the right advice. Hoping she would remember everything I tried to teach her. Did I prepare her well for everything that will come in the next few months? Will she miss me as much as I miss her? Will she remember to call me when good things happen, and when bad things do too? She was my first and only best friend for so very long…just her and me on those long days in California when we moved and I knew no one. When I was trying to figure out what she wanted while she cried and pointed and I cried and offered everything in the cabinet.
And it feels now like a little part of me is gone.
I look in the driveway every night, expecting still to see her car there.
Or to have her come in for our nightly skin care time (because why use your own stuff when you can come use mine?)
Or to have her send me a message – wanna go get some Starbs? It’s double star day!
It’s not that I don’t do those things with her sisters, but she was the instigator of so much of our times together.
I think we are all feeling her absence in our own ways.
And we had hardly had time to even think about her being gone when Karissa got in her horrific accident, and now most days are consumed with insurance agents and reports and really adulty stuff that I just would rather not deal with.
And some days are just really really hard.
Maybe they are for you too.
So here’s what I’m learning. Maybe it will help you too.
This is the real stuff of life.
The mess.
The hard days.
The growing up and moving on.
The changes that hurt but that are good too.
And it’s what we do in these times that make the difference.
Do I curl up on the couch and wallow in the feelings of “this all sucks. I want it to be not this way. I want it to all just work out for once” ?
Sure. I absolutely have those times.
And if this were 2, 3, 7 years ago – I probably would have stayed there.
Stuck so firmly in my “victimhood”.
Waiting for some thing or some one to come and “rescue” me.
And all of that never got me anywhere. I continued to just attract the kind of chaotic events to me because I was stuck in that chaos. Stuck in the cycle of negative feelings begetting negative circumstances begetting more negative feelings. Some of you were around for all of that. Some of you saw it. Some of you maybe even tried to help me break out of it. And I thank you for that.
I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for the amazing people around me – some of whom I have never had a chance to hug in real life.
Wow this is a meandering type of post – I’m all over the map!
I’m trying to get to a point here, and that’s this.
Life is always an adventure. Those adventures aren’t always full of happy moments, but they are always full of GOOD moments if you choose to see them that way. They don’t FEEL good, sure. But they are always GOOD if they get you to keep moving forward. If you can look at them not through a victim lens, but instead a lens of “this is interesting, what am I going to learn from this?”
And like the song I put above says – I hope you learn from those hard times and that they help you enjoy the good times.
If I had to say that I hope I taught my Kealey Grace anything – it’s that.
I hope I taught her to not fear the pain of the fall, but to embrace the lesson learned.
I hope I’m teaching all of my baby girls that lesson.
I hope I’m learning it fully for myself, so I can help pass it on to you.
Whoever is reading. Whoever needs to hear this.
Life hurts sometimes.
Things don’t always go as planned. Or even as hoped for.
And horrible unspeakable pains are endured by the human spirit every day. I cannot even begin to fathom some of the things that friends of mine lived through, still live through every day…And i wish I could take all of that pain and make it disappear. I wish I could give the world a hug and a coke and make it so every day was awesome and happy and amazing.
But….I can’t.
So I do what I can do.
Keep hoping for and looking for the Good Things that I know are going to happen.
Good Things Are Going To Happen.
I tell myself that every morning, and then I look for those good things.
My tomato plant had 5 bright red little cherry tomatoes on it – that’s a good thing!
I had money to put gas in my car tank – that’s a good thing!
I found three unexpected dollars in my pocket – that’s a good thing!
And sure, none of those things are life-changing discoveries. They won’t kill the pain of a lost child, of abuse, of eviction or lost jobs or broken relationships. But here’s what I know:
If I can believe that good things are going to happen, even if they aren’t THE good thing I was really hoping for or needing, then I can believe that my really big good thing is also going to happen.
And I can look for it. I can wait for it. I can always be expectantly hoping it is around the corner.
And when I do that, I get off that couch where I was curled up in my pain.
And when I get off that couch, I choose to go back to LIVING.
I choose to Live, even if it hurts sometimes.
I really have no idea where the twists and turns in this post came from, but instead of going back to try to edit it, I’m gonna leave it. I just feel like maybe someone somewhere needed to hear this, because I needed to type it like this.
Anyways in summary – I miss Kealey Grace and I hope she’s having an amazing time at school, learning to Live…as only she can.
I hope you are all having an amazing day, learning to Live…as only you can.
Good Things are Going to Happen.
Party on Party People.
–T