Where We Are Meant To Be

 I see the ear to ear smiles in the pictures she sends me. I can hear happiness and contentment in the sound of her voice. I know she is happy in a way that she hasn't been in a long, long time. 

When I talked to her last she quietly told me that this is where she wants to be. In this community with these people. This is where she is meant to be. This is where she feels whole. 

She is young still and has a lot of life to live. Maybe she will change her mind in the next several years as she graduates from high school and then from college. Maybe she won't. 

What I do know is that she will never, ever forget these feelings. She has lived her life adrift. Feeling off kilter and alone. Never having a place to anchor herself. Not even having a  place where she can feel truly herself - even I fear among the 6 of us. I wonder if we protect her too much. Our loves stifles her in a way that theirs does not. 

I feel such deep happiness for her. I know that I will always be her mama. And I know that there is nothing that will replace her love for the five of us she will leave behind. We have given her the roots she needs to grow and become all that she is meant to be. Being out there with her community allows her to spread her wings. For the first time in her life, I am able to glimpse what her life might look like outside of us. What I see right now makes me feel at peace. It shows me what the arc of motherhood should feel like and I know that everything is as it should be. 

To feel known and loved and accepted just as she is. What a dream come true for her. To feel whole and complete - it is what I believe what we spend the entirety of our lives searching for. Some find that wholeness early on in life and some never find it. 

I imagine that she will head back out west multiple times a year now. I imagine that when she gets a job at 16 she will save all of her money to head out there as much as she can. The memories she creates while there will sustain her while she is finishing her growing here with us. 

I only know a small portion of the loneliness she feels. I know that when she is with them, she is not alone anymore. I know that when she is here with us she only feels partially alive. I know that when she is with her tribe she feels completely alive. This is what I want for her more than anything else. 

 She is where she is meant to be. 

Fall Break 2020

The girls and I have this week off of school. When Sarah was a public school student this week was blocked off for the district as their fall break. I have not lived in a state, before we moved here, where public school children were given a fall break. Usually, once school begins the first real time off is at Thanksgiving. I have also never lived anywhere where school begins at the end of July/beginning of August as it does here, hence the need for the fall break. We kept this week off in our homeschool plans when it was decided that Sarah was going to come home to do her schooling this year. 

Sarah is actually in Portland, Oregon right now. Long before many of us realized that COVID was going to be around for as long as it has been we bought Sarah a plane ticket to spend her fall break out at Skyview Horse Ranch. She has an open invitation to visit there any time she would like to. Bob and I have been the ones to keep her from doing so because this would require her to fly solo. We did not feel comfortable with this idea until this year. Months and months ago, we found a non-stop flight out of Chicago's O'hare airport. We booked it for her and here we are...

I have mixed feelings about her traveling right now. I can say with certainty that if she was flying anywhere other than to Skyview I would have cancelled her trip. COVID is a very real danger in our house and with this Fall upswing in new cases I worry even more than normal. We don't have the luxury of relying on our health to see us through this because if one of us gets it, I am fairly confident that all of us will get it. That cannot happen if we can help it because of the likelihood of serious complications for Sarah should she contract this illness. But...Skyview is Sarah's happy place. I would not be surprised if she moved out to that area when she finishes her schooling. It is a place where she feels whole and loved and included in ways that she does not feel anywhere else. Plus, she gets to be surrounded by animals - most especially horses, her favorite animals of all time.

 I talked with Sarah about her risk of exposure when I was still on the fence about this trip. She told me that being able to go to Skyview was worth the risk for her because she loves being there so much. Sarah is very mature for her age, her disease has required this of her, and I know that she understands the potential complications she faces if she were to get COVID. So, when she told me that she was okay with the risk, I trusted her implicitly and to let her go. 

Elizabeth and I have some day trips planned to the zoo and a local apple orchard. I am also planning on doing my Fall deep cleaning of the house. It will take me pretty much the whole week to do, but by the end the house will sparkle in every nook and cranny that exists both inside and out (as I have a day planned for clean the garage and get the yard winterized). 

The boys don't have a Fall break, so for them this week is nothing out of the norm. School and work seem to take up most of their time. Joshua seems to have had an easier time transitioning and balancing college life with work and a social life. Andy will get there, and is making progress, but still seems a little overwhelmed by this new schooling responsibility. Balancing work and school is taking him some time, but I feel confident that once he gets there he will do just fine. Adjusting to change has always been a bit hard for Andy. By now, his transitioning pace is nothing that I worry too much about. I just know that it is part of who he is. 

That's all I've got for now. I've got some deep cleaning to attend to.