Quiet

When the kids aren't here, my mind isn't settled.  I know they are well taken care of.  I know they are having fun.  But I feel like a piece of me is missing.  Actually I feel like 4 pieces of me are missing.  You would think it would be fun.  A whole weekend to myself to do nothing but eat what I want, sleep until when I want, watch whatever I want and whenever I want on TV.  But the truth is, I can't even tell you what I do when they aren't here.

This is Easter weekend.  We would normally spend this weekend doing fun things with the kids...dying eggs, going to an Easter egg hunt, possibly going to the zoo, and just hanging out and being a family.  Instead, all weekend I've been catching up on projects, doing chores, grocery shopping; basically wandering around in circles trying to keep myself busy until Sunday morning when the kids come back home.

I wish I could rewind back to the way things used to be...before the stress, before the anger, before the shame, before the sadness.  That is where I wish we could be.  I don't want to go back to the past, I want that to be our present.

This is not what I want...this quiet house with no one in it.  I want it full of life.  Full of happiness.  Full of hope for what is to come.  I think about my life everyday and wonder if this is how it will be for the rest of my days, and I realize that if it is, I will be okay.  I can do this.  I am strong enough.  I can be happy.

I wonder if he's happy.  Happy with the way things are now, instead of the way things used to be.  Not the most recent past, but the happy, fun, full of love past.  If he's happy, I know I can do this.  That's all I want.  I wish he would hear me when I tell him that.  I think he's so much stronger, filled with so much more hope, so much more love, and so much more laughter when he's happy.  He deserves to be happy.  My kids deserve for him to be happy.

I was painting Isaac's closet today and a few separate times I felt myself choking back tears.  I tried to pinpoint the thought, memory, or emotion that was causing it, and there was nothing.  No one particular thing was in my brain...the only thing I heard was the quiet.