Fractures of our hearts

How do you do it?
I'm asking you mothers. The ones who have babies, and children, and husbands, and pets...People you care for. Animals you care about. How do you?

You have dinners to make, clothes to fold, children to soothe at night and sometimes it's in the middle of the night. Nights of disrupted sleep where you can't sleep, or they can't sleep, or someone can't sleep, and you're up doing the things that mothers do. Being present with those strong and capable laps that holds and unfolds every single care in the world and files them in folders marked:

"Times when mom was a superhero."
Or
"Times when mom said the right thing"
Or
"Times when mom listened and didn't talk"
Or
"Times when mom just held me."

 This deep commitment alone should win awards.

There should be awards given to those parents who mend chubby toddler knees, toes from bee stings, damaged feelings from toys not shared, or when friends words come out too honest. Far too many times, these little essential things are over looked, but they shape our lives. They matter deep inside the innermost fractures of our hearts.
Our parents nurture us. They accept us broken and whole at the same time.

I don't know how you do it. How you care so deep and still exist in other forms to other people. How you exist outside of all that you do inside the four walls of a home.
Where does this energy come from?
I thought hard about this recently, and I mean hard. I recall all those times I pined for my life to be a certain way, and now I know.
In my nursing class there are many parents.

Lets be realistic here, I feel as if my time is so limited that I am ready to give parent of the year awards to those people who are in my class (or are in any college atmosphere for that matter) and still are able to be actively present in their families lives.

I'm almost invisible to mine. I have books upon books open every day, papers strewn everywhere, and I'm typing, or reading, or highlighting, or scattering, and organizing messes. There's hellos and goodbyes, and I'm off to study.

I find time when I can to reach out to people I love and care for, but it's few and far between.
The kind of commitment raising children implores would be entirely unimaginable to me in my current circumstances.

I pray to God on the way to school, and on the way home from school, thankful. He knew what he was doing with me when He made me wait for things I previously prayed so much for. I pray for those people who have the same school commitments and families at home too.  I've become thankful for my near 40 minute commute to school everyday, because it gives me time to be thankful and prayerful.

Here's the weekly glimpse into my life:

Love,

Amber

Family

Tonight I was lying down after feeling nauseated. I was about to text my mom and ask her what it was she gave me to drink as a child to settle my stomach. I had these thoughts running through my fingertips via text message to my mother about how I was pretty sure it was coke syrup the medication, and also how it's also an ingredient in coke, and yada, yada, yada, when I was about to press send... 

And then I realized it was nearly MIDNIGHT..

Erasing my message, I came to the realization that no matter where you are in life, you still need your parents. 

They carry the necessities of life  in their bones, and you only hope that you keep and remember those good traits. You tightly tuck them in the crevices of your heart wherever you go, and pull them out like love notes for the times you need to read them. They've left their mark on your heart, and it's times like this that you know their likeness must have been created by something great. 

Sometimes you call, when you're hundreds of miles away, or maybe even a few blocks, just to hear the words "I love you."

You show up on doorsteps and delight in their presence. 

Being a single girl without a family of my own, I noticed more just how much I need my parents at times. I don't have a confidant, like a husband.  It's my mom or my dad, or my siblings that give me advice, pray for me, encourage me. 

This isn't a bad thing. God designed our hearts to be protected and kept safe by our families until we leave our family to start one of our own.

I know I am in my late 20's, but I still need my parents. I know some might think that I am old enough to be less attached to them, but until I have a family of my own, they are the only home I know, and I am thankful to have them.

Forever changed

Today I was driving from Ontario to Boise on the freeway. I drove past this truck advertising car repair. The tow truck was towing some kind of extended cab truck that was unrecognizable from damage. My first thought was that the truck was beyond repair and thought it odd, but then I started examining the truck more closely. There was a motor home attached the the back of the truck, this caused me to swallow hard. Someone who was on vacation.
The damage of the truck terrified me. A lump formed in my throat, and my stomach was knots upon knots. I couldn't help but cry a little before I looked away. I knew that behind the tangled metal and crushed glass, there was a family grieving. I immediately said a prayer for healing, comfort, and protection of the family who owned that vehicle.

So many times we want to stare at all the damage that has been done, but when faced with it's reality, it is so hard to see it. There have been so many tragedies lately, ones that have hit so close to home, friends of friends, or people we know. It brings on the worst kind of ache, something that can't be fixed by time, something you'll always remember. Time does not heal all wounds. It springs up like an overwhelming fountain of tears, in the most random places:
On the free way driving, in coffee shops when you first hear the news, in churches, in homes, in streets,  in schools, and in grocery stores, we weep.
You recognize a face that reminds you of someone gone. Tears, they just happen to come with it like a badge you're wearing. You seek comfort from those who remember that person, you never want to let those people go because they connect you. You seek comfort from God. You hope for a sign from God that everything is okay. You pray for one too.

This tangle of metal, the crushing of glass, it brings the pain back that every car accident I have heard about or seen since, does. I want to look away, because it reminds me how much I miss your smile, and your cheerful voice chiming like bells. It's gone from my eardrums in a instant, but I still remember it well.
The broken pieces bring me back to sitting in the school coffee shop, staring at facebook, learning you were gone after I'd just talked to you days before.
I know though, you wouldn't want any of us to be sad. It's a bittersweet realization.
You had the brightest smile, and you loved life so much.
I don't want to think about what your last minutes might have been like, and so I won't.  I  just want to remember you escaping from my car in the summer night with your one shoe, leaving the broken one behind for me to find, something to remember you by.
I still have your shoe.

That awkward moment when...

It doesn't matter where it happens, or when it happens, but if you're in your late 20's, single with no children to speak of...And I mean none, then it's bound to come up.

It's always an awkward moment when someone asks you a question, and you reply with a response that goes against the natural progression of adolescence, then young adulthood, and then finally adulthood (at least in Idaho).

The conversation goes something like this.

Them: Are you married?

Me: Uh, No.

Them: Oh, do you have any children?

Me: Um... Nope.

Them: Oh, a boyfriend then?

Me: Hmm. No.

The last person to ask these series of questions actually interrogated me further by asking "Why".

I was caught quite off guard by her question. I didn't know her well, and my life is pretty much an open book to most people, but I wondered what's wrong with this? Why can't I be in my late 20's and single with no children? Why can't this be acceptable to someone else? Outside of small towns in rural areas, or even Idaho, this might be a normal thing.

I don't think she realized how sensitive of a topic this was for me, or she wouldn't have asked. I remember feeling very uncomfortable, but I don't recall what I told her to soothe her from asking more questions. The room was unbearably hot, and I wanted go somewhere to be alone to ask myself this very same question...Why?

 It is a thought consistently on my heart and mind since the only person I ever gave my heart to broke it years ago. I don't wish this person any ill, or hold angst for them in my heart. I know that he was not the right person for me.

I am thankful God delivered me from the situation before I had the chance to make a wrong decision.

I think a part of me is very much afraid of putting myself out there. I am not a pursuer. I know that for anything to happen God is going to have to smack me in the face with it, or give them a gift of pursing me. 

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about my hearts desire to marry and have children. I see my friends and their families, and I am so happy for them, but a part of me wishes that I could have something similar. 

When I was a child I had a plan.

This plan was to marry in my late teens or early 20's, and have four children by the time I was 30. Ha! I mock the dreams of my younger self, but not out of resentment or regret. I know that my plan wasn't the right plan for my life.  I know that God has had other plans for me. 

I look back at the last five years, and I know that I wouldn't have been able to do all of things I've been fortunate enough to do with a family of my own. My focus would have been completely theirs and rightfully so. 

Still, it doesn't stop my human heart from questioning His plan for me. 

For hoping. 

For wishing.

No, God has had other plans for me. I may not understand right now. I know the next two years of my life will be completely absorbed by the RN program. 

So I wait, and awkwardly watch my daddy try to marry me off in conversations so that he can have grandchildren before he dies... No seriously..this happens ALL the time! Love you dad!