The Window

He is just so cute :)

The proverbial saying says something about whenever God closes a door, he always opens a window.

Do you all ever sit around and wonder just when exactly is that is gonna happen? Or perhaps, your window like mine, is cracked. But you just can't seem to get it shoved all the way open. Maybe it is stuck. Maybe something is blocking it. Maybe somebody painted over it.

I sit here tonight, supposed to be writing something profound to add to my already very long thesis paper. And lately, all I can see is the endless road ahead of us. The hole that we didn't dig, but somehow have to climb out of. The roadblock after roadblock that has been thrown our way. The daily grind of our new life that somehow doesn't seem like any kind of life. I find myself trying to survive each day, only to regret the fact that I am wishing my kids' childhood away. I lay awake each night hoping I don't drop all these balls I have gotten thrown. And I can't see the end. It isn't there. Which makes it all that much harder.

Some days I wish I could just let it all go. Quit my job and school and focus on my kids. Sell this house and get out from the separation of my family, and from the ever-present entity that attempted to destroy us. Every time I step outside I am reminded of it. And while I am doing my best to not be bitter and angry and defeated, I cannot just let go of the fact that much of what happened this past year was done to us, through no fault of our own. Yet we are left to pick up the pieces, hanging by the thinnest thread, and trapping us in unavoidable and frustrating circumstances.

Steve Jobs said something in his famous speech at Stanford about the dots connecting. You cannot look forward and see how all this will affect your life. You can only look back and see that, because of it, you are where you are today. I know our dots are all leading us somewhere. That is what keeps me going. Knowing that there is so much ahead of us that will be better. Someday I won't have to work every weekend. Someday I will get to spend more than a couple hours a week with my husband. Someday, my kids will know that we did everything we could to keep things stable for them during this time. And that we tried so very hard to make their futures good, too.

I am thankful. I am thankful for the friends who let me whine and cry and complain. I am thankful for the mother in law that watches my kids every single week, and gets up in the middle of the night so I can take the sick one to the urgent care. I am very thankful for my husband's boss, who lets him work out a schedule to help me work, helping us climb out of that hole. And I am thankful that what we have gone through is so much less than what others have had to endure. Our path isn't pretty, but I know that many would choose ours in a heartbeat over what they have had to walk.

So, about that window. I know that I can't see what will open it just yet. But I have faith that it will. However, if any of you all has a crowbar, let me know :)