Pending

Part of my heart is back in North Dakota.  Oh, do I ache.

Todd left early Saturday morning and much like I had anticipated, it was the hardest goodbye yet.  I sobbed and I cried and I squeezed him tight hoping to memorize his smell and the thickness of arms and exactly how it felt to feel him wrap around me in a tight embrace.  It was the hardest because I'm not certain when I'll see him again.  I don't have a date circled on the calendar or an event like the birth of a baby to dictate when he'll be here.  All I know is that I'll see him again pending the sale of our house and finding a place up there.  He will be back when it's time to pack up and move.  When it's time to say goodbye to everyone - then that will be the hardest goodbye.

It feels hard for life to feel up in the air just after you've brought a new baby into the world.  Nothing feels settled and everything feels like it's hinging on something on else to happen and I wonder how much of the change Jacob feels as an infant.  The more I clean and organize my home in preparation to put on the market, the more sterile it feels.  It's as if the homey feeling I've created here is being packed up little by little in efforts to create a space that feels neutral and inviting for prospective home-buyers.  This process is nauseating to me.  It's my home and our first house and I'm not quite ready to leave it just yet.

We had to declutter and rearrange Tommy's room over the weekend.  When he saw what we had done, he had a massive meltdown and cried everywhere.  His tantrum felt like looking into a mirror for my own heart because as excited as I feel about some of these changes, there is just as much sorrow and rage for all that I have to leave behind.  Tommy's emotions simply echo my own and all I have been able to do is tell him that I'm sorry and cry right alongside of him. 

Tears have come easily since the boxes came out and since my husband drove back north.  And I'm trying to give myself a break about it all, because I did just have a baby and hormones and all of the post-partum glory comes in to play too.  But I feel like a weepy mess and not having Todd here to hold me in all of my emotion and heartache feels unbearable when I let myself feel that void.

After he left Saturday morning, I sat on my bed and sobbed for a while and surrendered to prayer and poured my heart and my guts out to God.  And it wasn't like I hadn't prayed the entire time Todd had been home, but maybe I prayed less because I didn't need Him as much.  I was aware of how Todd's presence here lightened my load and that I was in a place where I didn't need to talk to God about every moment of every day and how I could get through it.  I depend on Todd for things and he loves and cares for me in such tangible ways and the last two and a half weeks felt like a refresher for my soul.  It almost felt like God allowed me to have this much needed break.  But here I am again, in desperate, grasping need for my Savior to get me through these hardest days.  I've dreaded them and am dreading them. 

I keep wondering how I can find joy when my heart aches and when there is so much to grieve.  When so much is up in the air, so much pending.