Outwards

I never really mean to step away from this space for more than a day or two, but in these several years of blogging, I've noticed that sometimes little sabbaticals naturally form.  One of the lovely things about blogging simply for the pleasure of documenting our family life is that I can go with the flow without pressure or deadlines.  Sometimes it is a sickness in the family, or a particularly busy week with the kids, or giving birth to twins.  You know, the usual stuff.  :-)

The last few weeks I've found myself struggling with the seasonal shift.  Or more accurately, struggling with the anticipation of the seasonal shift.  The barren branches, the chill in the air, the darkening of the evenings.  I didn't feel ready.  Not quite yet.

But also, it was more than that.  I also found myself struggling with some larger picture seasonal shifts.  An unexpected health situation in the extended family.  Accepting the reality of the physical distance between us and people we love deeply.  Seeing our babies venturing out into the world with their own stumbling first steps and realizing that they are no longer the newborns we cradled so eagerly.  These are normal sorts of things that we all deal with every day, but somehow I allowed them to cast a dark cloud over my every day life.  The same every day life that I find to be blindingly beautiful from one moment to the next, which I receive with a grateful heart as a gift from our Creator.  But just like the approaching cold, it wasn't the winter itself that left me feeling down, but the anticipation of it.  Isn't it funny how that happens?

I cleared my schedule to allow for solitude and introspection, and attending to the urgent matters at hand.  That gave me space to process and gather my thoughts, but, truth be told, my spirit still felt gloomy.  Because the winter is still coming, whether I like it or not.  And it was somewhere in the middle of that gloominess that I felt a stirring inside of me propelling me outward.  Not the usual thing for a woman who is a homebody through and through.  It felt quite urgent, to tell you the truth, in a "Whew, I need to get out of this room because it is feeling hot!" sort of way.  Out of the room of my introspection into the world, where there are countless adventures, new faces, new experiences, along with immeasurable beauty.  I mean, I have six built in companions by my side, right?  And somehow, adventure has a way of making life so much more exciting, don't you think?

The trees are becoming increasingly bare, the evenings are longer and darker, and fall is quite certainly here.  It isn't nearly as bad as I had feared, to tell you the truth.  Quite nice, actually.