"Bob and Sue": Dog Days

This week has been hard. Not just busy, but difficult. I've crashed into several painful emotions over and over and it's worn me down. I feel weathered.

Loss of friends.
Good/old friends moving. Living in a university town, people move in and out like clockwork over the summer. Some years are harder than others, depending on how close I am with the folks moving out. This has been a sad, sad summer of loss. A pretty intense week. Four good/old friends leaving. I've done this time and time again, but it still stings. I haven't had time to mourn them properly, so it feels like an open wound.

New love for family.
Family closeness and distance. I spent last weekend with my siblings and parents at my sister's wedding. Bobby and the kids stayed in Illinois. I was confused about which role to play, since I wasn't in my usual "mom" mode, and I haven't interacted with my siblings much as an adult. I was, however, able to have some real conversations with real people about issues that matter to me. To us. I got to know my siblings and nieces and nephews better, which genuinely made me happier. I feel like I'm getting to know my family better now than ever I did as a kid living in the same house with them. It was painful to leave just when I felt we were making real progress. I am genuinely looking forward to heading out there again in a few weeks with the whole crew (Evans fam reunion in Idaho).

Loss of processing time.
Summer is dragging, but busier than ever. The magic of summer officially wore off this week :) We were busy with play dates, camps, volunteer activities, music lessons, shuttling Alice to babysitting gigs, working in the garden, and keeping the house livable. I've had very little time to process any of it. When I'm going from one thing to the next without time to process the experience, I plop down at the end of the day feeling like I've done nothing...and yet I'm exhausted. My brain doesn't slow down for sleep. My eyelids can't stay open, but I'm whirring through the schedule already gearing up for the next hundred things on my list. And the kids! Oh, the kids. This week, it's like they're broken: the boys are bickering and hyperaggressive, and the girl could cry about anything at any moment.

Insatiable cravings for impossible things.
Sola Gratia time is never enough. Even when I'm there, I feel like I'm missing out. And when I'm away from it, I wish I were back. I just want to wrap it all up in my arms and understand it. See every moment of it. See why and how and when and who...and be an integral part of it. Nine hours a week is not enough, and yet, it's all I've got right now. This morning, I spent three hours picking cucumbers. That's it. I didn't get to be a part of the 50 other things happening at the same time. I've done the math over and over, and I just can't work full-time at a farm right now. Not for at least 2 more years! And yet, I keep staring at my schedule trying to squeeze another few hours a week out of it. Hours for the farm.

Longing to move my body.
I wish I could exercise regularly again. Our summer schedule is too packed and irregular to fit in a predictable workout routine at the YMCA. And I've been taking a Parent-Child ceramics class with Robert that meets during my weekly run club. There are pockets of time I could use to move my body throughout the day, but I always find something else in the moment that I want/ought to do more. I often stare at my schedule trying to squeeze a few hours out for physical activity, too.

So, that's the long and short of it. Tough week. Lots to work through and not much time for processing. This has helped, though. I just realized that our afternoon quiet time routine has vanished this summer. I'm thinking it's time to bring it back. Maybe that will give me more of the "regenerative" kind of time I really need. Hm.

I'll leave you with a few recent photos. Even though the days are tough, they've also been getting a little better in some ways. All of the kids are old enough now to enjoy some level of humor and word play. We can joke around together and laugh as a group. Most of it is potty humor, but I'll take what I can get at this point ;)

Robert took this picture. Matthew loves to gross him out by kissing me on the lips.

We visited the U of I Conservatory with some friends (who move tomorrow *sob*). The misty fog was cool. It wasn't like that the first time we went. The carnivorous plant room was a big hit. The desert room felt dangerous and exciting. I liked the epiphyte room, personally. But the main conservatory shown here had cacao, coffee, and banana trees with actual fruit hanging off of them. That was the hands-down winner.

Matthew took this selfie in the Dr's office. Yup, he was wheezing like crazy and had to get an albuterol breathing treatment and oral steroids to open up his lungs. Like in Robert's case of yore, the doc wouldn't call it asthma until it had happened several times. They let us keep the nebulizer, though, just in case ;) Matthew loved the breathing treatments once we let him watch 10 minutes of Curious George or Daniel Tiger during them.