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

Love-letters

Dear God,

I have shortcomings. I am vulnerable. I am weak.
I know you've allowed me to start this journey for a reason. It's a roller coaster ride.
I know you have a plan to get me through this, somehow, someway, that I cannot see at this current moment of desperation.

I don't know if I am making this harder than it has to be, or if I am being melodramatic. I am a girl after all. I have emotions that know no end. They fool me into believing things that aren't the truth.
And all I can hope is that I recover from train wrecks, and focus on what is true, what is good, and what is real.

Right now I know I feel overwhelmed like I'm getting paid to feel overwhelmed.

I am thankful that I am not alone in this.
When people warn you about things being tough, you don't realize it until you are walking in their shoes.

In a sense I want to remember every single difficult, intense, moment of this. I want to know I lived it with every fiber and made it through. I don't want to wish it away like I am wishing moments of my life away.

I just know that I won't make it through alone.

Love,

Amber

Finding home

School
Phew.
Week two is over.
My brain feels somewhere between a balloon full of water about to burst and a dendrite on its last leg.

There is no wasting time, and I feel like I am wasting time sometimes, or that I could have been more productive with this or that. I am a perfectionist, but I am definitely having to realize my shortcomings in this!

I'm feeling like my brain isn't smart right now. I hope I am not the only one that feels this way. I have been studying like it's nobodies business, and I am curious what the study habits are of my fellow classmates.
If any of you are reading this, care to enlighten me? :]
There are so many rabbit holes of information that it's hard to keep things straight.
I know that if it weren't for my fellow classmates, and their reminders of deadlines, I would feel like I was drowning slightly more than I am, haha!
All I know is that I am always praying about something.

Life in general
I've had a full week this week!

We got a baby grand piano on craigslist for an amazing deal. It's in amazing shape! I haven't had a piano for a long time, and I used to play everyday. I missed it, and I didn't realize how much until I started playing again.
Playing the piano is free therapy.
The minute my fingers strike the keys, I feel at home.
I'm lost in those keys.
Sometimes you can find home in the simplest of places. When your life is in transition constantly, which I feel like I have been over the last year or so, you long to feel some normalcy.
Normalcy in the sense that you are grounded in a routine. My routine is-- I don't have a routine. School starts on different times every day for the most part, and I'm having to place my life around my studying. I mean really who wants to be normal completely, I guess this is my new life and I have to grow accustomed to it.
You grow to find solace in the simple things in life like playing the piano for five minutes, the laughter of your nieces and nephews, praying, sipping coffee, attending weddings of people you care for, just taking part in life in small ways that you can.


I miss my friends and family I don't have as much time for as I did before
My best friends, you know who you are, I miss you so much.

Here's a glimpse into my life this week:

Love,

Amber

It won't be forever.

My second week of nursing school is underway, and I don't think I will ever be able to fit everything inside my brain that I have to fit.

There are things for days to pack inside there.

I have found myself doing more homework in these last two weeks than I feel like I have ever done in my whole college career before now. I know you might think I am over exaggerating, but I am not.
There are places to check, hidden assignments, nearly missed posts, and I guess I feel like my pre-nursing college days were easy as peach pie compared to this madness.

It's good, and I am not complaining. I enjoy the class time, and I feel like I can't get enough of it. I just feel like we were nurtured more in my prior college experience.

In my pre-nursing school days, If you had a test, you would know that it's over chapter such and such, but in nursing school they give you a list of questions to look up, a list of maybe four books the information for the whole sheet of questions might be in, and that's it! So you have two books that are 2000 pages each, and you maybe even one of those four books are split up into two books, with an index that lasts for days...

I was not prepared for this, but I feel like I am grabbing hold of these concepts at least.
Nursing school is not for the faint of heart.
You work hard.
Your laundry goes unfolded.
You might be found crying  in bedrooms and cars from the sheer overwhelming feelings of the list of things you have to do.
You worry a little about how you're going to have a job.
You write just to keep your sanity.
You pray on the way to school and on the way home from school just to make it.
And you hope that at the end of the two years, you're there carrying a diploma that says you made it to the finish line.

Love,

Amber