I really didn’t mean to walk away. My post list is full of unfinished drafts and my journal scratched with ideas for posts that would have been witty or simple or just words used to fill a space that I thought needed me.
But sometimes that everyday living needs us more. After I wrapped production on A Christmas Carol December 15, I needed a few days to decompress. I treated myself to library books and rest times while Amelia bounced on the bed beside me and watched My Little Pony. I made an attempt to catch up on the laundry and I pinned dozens of projects I know I’m not likely to ever do.
I savored a few days of just being a mom, just being a wife, and not allowing myself to succumb to all the invisible pressures I felt whenever I looked online.
But the more days that slipped by, the more I didn’t know how to come back. Did anyone really want an update of how we’d spent our holiday with the Lysol can in one hand and the unfinished shopping list in the other? Besides, I might write a post people tell me they enjoy but I’m not getting shares or likes or ratings worthy of a Google AdSense payout, so is it really worth my time right now?
I found myself sinking under the weight of have-to the longer I lingered offline. I have to blog about the play. I have to blog about Madelynne’s field trip. I have to blog about getting ready for Christmas and I have to talk about the comedy of errors that was our attempt at a gathering with my extended family.
Then that day was past and suddenly the New Year was steamrolling toward me and I need to write about my one word. I need to choose a word. I need to recap the year. I need to….
I need to be exactly where I am. This first morning of this shiny New Year I am sitting vigil in a hospice facility by the bedside of my 85 year old grandfather. The timeline keeps changing. What we thought would be only hours have stretched to days and the descent toward comes rapidly slow.
So I am here. Trading shifts with my sisters and holding his hand and my grandmothers. Helping choose dresses and suits. Looking over obituary paperwork and watching the weather because half the family is northeast and the storm is coming.
But so is the light. No doubt it will be brighter than any New Year’s Eve fireworks display or Christmas tree or effect I saw on the stage. No doubt it will be worth waiting for.
So I am not going to drown myself in a non-existent list of have-to. I am simply going to begin again. May your New Year be blessed with the sacred moments of love and may you find your faith in promises that are stronger than any mankind could ever make.
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” (John 14:1-4, ESV)
Lindsey P. Brackett 