Moms – God is in the Outcome

Everything brings a memory. Ev.Re.Thing.

Idalia is the first hurricane to come since he’s been gone.

He used to help me figure out what needed to be moved around or put away from the back yard. My boys have all offered to help, thankfully.

We used to worry whether the power would go out at night because he wore a CPAP every single night (because he planned to be around for a long time and untreated sleep apnea is not a good way to plan for that.)

I never really worried about the storms because we’d snuggle on the couch, watch movies or good TV, and make popcorn (as long as we had power.) When we didn’t have power, we’ve cooked on the grill outside til it came back on once it was safe to be out there.

Our pool house flooded one year. So much wet stuff. Scott got floor blowers out there, we moved everything we could together, and got it all dried out. It was a mess and an inconvenience but I’m not sure what I’ll do if I have to handle such an “inconvenience” alone. Again, I have my boys and they’ll help with anything I need (and I am so very grateful for every single day I have them and am so thankful they’re all near now) but I still just miss him always knowing what to do and always having a way to figure things out.

Yes, I’m an adult and I was a single mom for years. I’m capable of figuring things out for myself but I just don’t want to anymore. It was so good having him to lean on when life just felt overwhelming. And I guess I never truly knew what overwhelming felt like until now.

Funny how lightning and Thunder crashing outside my windows can bring back so many memories of trying times but now they seem like beautiful memories.

If you still have your person please know now that the things that feel like bad times are still really the good times because you’re doing life together. You aren’t facing the world alone.

For you, this is just another hurricane.

About a week ago, I was standing in a local store with my mom and she’s talking to me about my boys, my three, thriving, growing, smart, amazing boys. She says to me, out of the blue, “You need to start looking for…” “STOP, Mom. No, I don’t.”, I say. Because I could already tell where she was going with this. But she could not take the hint and I was already beginning to turn red. This is always the way the conversation has to go for her. “You are depriving them of…(and I stopped her again because I’m familiar with the pattern but I’ll finish it for you…’a positive male role model’). “No, Mama. I’m not. They have him.” And I point to my step-dad who was walking with us and who lives only one block away from me. My boys have their dad but they also have someone who comes to my rescue when my house is broken into. They have someone who comes immediately when they are in the E.R., and their dad does, too. They still see someone who comes over to help me fix things that are broken at my house if it’s something that I haven’t learned how to fix yet. And they do still have a Dad who goes to their soccer games, who hugs them and who tells them that he loves them when they’re at his house. We just don’t all happen to live together as a big happy family anymore. Besides all of that, I just so happen to have learned to be a pretty good XBOX fixer, I can change out broken toilet parts myself, fix leaky sinks, change tires and do many other boy things that quite a few moms haven’t had the joy of learning. Just because they’re boys, do I not count; I’m the role model! Hey, hey…look at me over here! (Insert eye roll here…)

What an insult to say that I’m depriving them because I’m not out “looking” for a replacement dad. First of all, I would never. Second of all, WHA??? If I have learned one thing, one very important thing, from being married, divorced and single again, it is that I don’t NEED someone. I remember thinking that life was all about finding someone to complete you. As it turns out, I am the only one who can complete me. I just had to figure out what all my pieces were and where to put them. I’ve learned so much (and still am) about who I am and what I’m all about. I know now that it was silly for me to ever think or expect someone else to be able to fill up the holes that I, myself, didn’t even have the pieces for, or didn’t know where to locate them. I had to wait to understand the gaps myself and am much better equipped now to be a better, more whole person than I was when I was waiting around for someone to “complete me”.

Right now I am truly not looking for anyone. I don’t even know that I’m really capable of a deep trust with people anymore anyway. I care about people but I’ve come to understand that people will always let you down and that we just love them anyway, faults and all, because we’re all made that way. We can’t even help it. So, just don’t tell me to be on the lookout and don’t send me out looking, okay? I’m good.

Category: Moms

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