Change

It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I was scraping snow and ice off my windshield every morning and slowly sliding my way towards Bluffton. I remember thinking, at least a hundred different times, that I couldn't wait for spring to arrive. There was a period in there that I almost succumbed to the belief that it might not return.

So, here I sit this morning, listening to the rain fall gently on the roof. I can see tree branches just beginning to bud at their tips. When you walk outside you are hit with the smell of earth. Of worms making their way out of wherever it is they have spent their winter. There is new life – green replacing grey at every turn. The cycles of life are so evident right now – beginnings and endings. And beginnings again.

And what am I doing? Wondering when it's going to stop raining. Looking past the place I wanted to be just a few short weeks ago and mentally bitching because I'm not someplace else.

How utterly human is that?

I haven't written much in the last few days because I haven't had much positive to say. Sometimes when I look at this blog I have a creeping sensation that I'm not really telling the truth about my life. When I read what's here it all appears to be so light, funny and just a little too perfect. And those periods when I'm absent from the blog are days that there's nothing light, funny or perfect going on.

So, here's some truth for today. We have had the kid-ling more than we can comfortably handle in the last few weeks. We're burned out. Stressed out. We try our very best to help him mature and be a good human being but the truth of the matter is he's not our kid. It doesn't really matter what we do.

The house in Toledo still has not sold and money situations just seem to be inching incrementally backwards. How far back can you go before stepping off the cliff?

Our house is a mess. When kid-ling is here the dogs are banished to the backyard until he goes to bed. It's been raining a lot. They have drug more dirt and mud in our house than can possibly be healthy.

The nights we don't have the kid-ling we are so tired that for dinner we scrounge the cabinets for things that don't require cooking and end up subsisting on a meal of Funyuns and string cheese. 

Tired of hearing all this yet? I am. But, it's where I am right now. And, at least occasionally, this part of my life is the truth too.

But if spring can teach me anything, there is one precious truth – things can change. You just have to wait through the rain.