Ups and downs

Christmas is over. Officially... even all of the decorations are down. It was sad to do in some ways but having it down has significantly lightened the burden of worrying about the boys breaking anything.

I love the start of a new year. I'm big on resolutions and will be reviewing my last years resolutions this week and making new ones for 2011. I love the chance to start over. To celebrate the victories of the past while leaving the failures behind with a new start and resolve. If there is one thing I miss about being a student it is the new start each semester brought. In some ways New Years brings a new similar to that - only the semesters seem much longer now.

John and I have spent the last month contemplating our new theme for the year. We feel good about the one we have decided on and I'm planning a special dinner to introduce it this weekend.

I received a very special blessing from a special friend of our family, Bishop Mitchell. The Mitchell family has long been an extension of our own family and they have been so supportive and wonderful while we have been here. The blessings and message are too personal for me to share but I walked away with a sense of calm and peace that I had not felt in a long time.

With the beautiful messages shared yesterday at church I couldn't help but singing loudly as my heart burst with joy. We were singing There is Sunshine in my Soul Today. I smiled as I thought back to a memory of Rachel and I with linked arms singing that same hymn on the streets of Romania 11 years ago. The circumstances felt so similar - both a time where I found myself in a less than ideal circumstance but truly felt real inner joy.

In Romania my fingers had been cut by someone who was robbing me. They had managed to cut my purse open and start robbing me but fortunately I caught them, just not fast enough. The day had been rotten for other reasons I cant remember now but I remember that we sang our way home and to There is Sunshine in my Soul Today while my fingers bled.

The juxtaposition of these two times in my life was poignant on Sunday as I sang with all my heart. Romania and my present - both once in a lifetime opportunities, both have taken me farther out of my comfort zone than I had ever been, both have required me to dig deeper into myself than I had ever done before, and both have changed me forever.

When it comes to grief...if there are ups they are inevitably accompanied by the downs.

As I packed Christmas up I tried to shove the overwhelming sense of foreboding down. The overwhelming sense that once again we have passed a significant milestone. Only this was the milestone we had waited for and built up. And now that its past I cant help but feel a little lost. After the letdown of all that emotion I'm struggling to readjust my thinking and trying to find my footing in the day to day of this disease.


I need to be here with my Mom.
I need to be in Utah with my family.

I need to spend time sitting next to my Mom slowing down so we can have a conversation through her ipad.
I need to be running and playing and going fast forward with my boys.

I need to be here because no one understands and gets my Mom like I do.
I need to be with John and my boys because no one understands and get them like I do.

I cant help but be a little bitter at times that I am being forced to choose between my past and my future at the same time. Every choice I make pleases one part of my soul and tears the other part of me to pieces. I am trying to do it all and be it all at the same time.

It leaves me feeling up and down all at the same time. I teeter totter back and forth between the two parts of my life searching desperately for equilibrium and always finding myself off balance one way or the other.

I don't know if its possible to find balance, but I will keep trying.