It's been a minute since I've blogged. Like 10 years worth of minutes. Life has been full of ups and downs and hurt and healing and I'm finally in a place that feels like I can sit and write about our family again. There have been some big things that happened during the last 10 years and, although part of me feels like I need to go back and talk about all of them in detail, I think I'm going to just start fresh today.
The last ten years have been like building a quilt. Life was cut into pieces with sharp blade as Logan became sicker and sicker and eventually passed away from his Bi-Polar. Painful doesn't seem to adequately describe the emotions of that time. What started out as a beautiful sheet of fabric was now tiny pieces of our shattered hearts waiting to be put back together. The fabric was still beautiful and we knew that what was to come would be even more beautiful but the creation would be a long process. I found myself being super busy so I wouldn't have to face the emotions. This was definitely a survival tactic and one that was needed during that time. Maybe my heart was simply too fragile to face what had happened. I went about my day to day, made some major life changes personally - hello Mrs. Bishop elementary teacher - filled time with the boys and Gary and told myself I was fine. Somewhere in the background, I knew I needed to sit still and listen and hurt and heal but I was worried about what it would look like. This summer, that has been my focus. And you know what? I haven't completely fallen apart like I worried I would!
Back to my quilt analogy. There are times when you are sewing along and everything looks great and you are cranking out those pieces and then you realize that you are out of bobbin thread and you aren't really sewing at all. While I was going through the motions and putting on a smile, there were days that my bobbin thread was out and nothing was holding together.
There are times when you are sewing along and realize you have connected the wrong pieces and you need to sit back and spend some time unpicking to sew it correctly. If you leave it, the quilt will never work out the way you want. It's a tedious process. This summer, I'm spending some time unpicking old habits. I'm unpicking not acknowledging my feelings. I'm unpicking thinking I need to be busy every minute of the day. I'm unpicking putting everyone else first so I don't have to deal with the heartache of losing Lo. I'm unpicking some dang hard habits to break and hoping this unpicking ends soon!
Sometimes, when you get a square sewn together, there are small pieces that need to be trimmed off. They are beautiful scraps of fabric and cutting them takes some courage. Sometimes I question if I really do need to cut them or if I can just leave them because it won't hurt anything. But the reality is, they need to be snipped off in order for the beauty of the quilt to really come through. I'm trying to do this by snipping things that are in my life because they are convenient or something I should keep according to everyone else but aren't really adding to the beauty. It's hard to make that cut. It's painful at times. It's something others often judge and, deep down, I'm a people pleaser that wants everyone to like me. In the end, however, it makes my quilt lay smooth and later connections that really matter easier to piece together. I'm not bogged down with so many things to do that I don't have time to fit in the ones that really matter. It's freeing!
Why the quilt analogy? I've been making a quilt for Gary and me. It's the first time I'm making one specifically for the two of us. As I've spent hours cutting and sewing and ironing, it's given me time to reflect on my life and where I am in the grief cycle. It's given me time to think about why I can sew again now and find enjoyment when I've put it aside for a decade. It's given me time to make plans for the future and find joy in the little things again. It's given me time to realize that sometimes you just simply need time.
