Monday, May 28, 2012

The beauty of an ordinary day...

I am realizing, as I get older, how very little I know.  I hope I am learning.  I think at the very least I am understanding....a little bit more.  About me...and how things work.

I saw a very dear friend this weekend, and was reminded of how very much I enjoy her company.  She asked me if I was still blogging, and I was ashamed to admit I had not been, for a very long time.  It's one of those things that when your life is super busy you always mean to do...but never gets done.  Then you feel guilty, and feel that you must catch up with updates on all of the things you've missed, and that seems even more overwhelming.  If you're me...that adds up to just too many steps to take to just get there, and the end result is you do nothing.  Okay, I admit it...I suck.

The reality is I love being a story teller, or a story keeper.  I first started this blog with the idea that I could keep a record of our life, and what was happening on a day to day basis for my girls.  I have nowhere to go and no one to ask about my day to day when I was a kid.  We traveled the world, and when I look at pictures of that time I have no one to ask "Where were we here...what were we doing?"  " Who was this person...they look so familiar?"  The only ones that know that answer are now gone, and with my genetic legacy I have thought I should document things now for my girls, so they never need to wonder "who was that...or where were we?"  So far that documentation is sparse, at best.  Perhaps slightly better than one of those albums where the pages are sticky brown lines, and the pictures are held down by a curling page of acetate...but not much.

So thank you Jamie for making me think about all of this again...and bring it back to the forefront of my mind.  As we have spent the last few weeks readying our house for sale, and dreaming of what is to be, I keep coming back to how much I love the house we are in.  In this little condo we have lived thousands of ordinary days, which I am now realizing are the treasures of life.  We met on a blind date on the front step of this home, me with PURPLE hair (after a bad breakup and a need for "change").  His first words to me were "You're gorgeous!", and so even with the purple hair we seemed meant to be.  We crossed the threshold as newlyweds in this home, and brought both of our baby girls home from the hospital to this nest.

We have loved to entertain in this home, and that is probably where some of the most precious memories lie.  Hundreds of nights of Chateau Robert, and Rob's gourmet dinners that were beyond compare.  Add to that the beautiful/amazing wine that has always been a part of our lives and I have always said I am married to the best restaurant in Orange County.  So many evenings where the awesome dinner turned into game night, and our favorite...Pictionary.  I have rarely laughed as hard as I have during these games, where the drawings were either super amazing, or so awful that you held your sides laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.  Either way, just very happy memories...all in these four walls.

Rob and I watched our girls grow here.  I remember one of the first nights after bringing Zoey home from the hospital we just sat her bouncy chair on the dining table and stared at her, marveling at this little person we had created.  We touched her little hands, and giggled...marveled by what the Lord had blessed us with.  This perfect little person was really ours?  A new type of honeymoon, drunk with love for this little person and each other.  We got to experience it all again when we brought Avery home...now a real little family.  Our day to day had many struggles, but with the things that mattered we were really blessed.

The years went on and we lived each one with lots of love.  Christmas times with all of the cool traditions and magic young children bring to that.  Soccer, and Girl Scouts and birthdays and on and on.  We ran through each week and month with super full lives, but perhaps not being able to be enough in the moment for any of them.  Then the losses came to us, losing my Mom, and Dad, and Henny.  Then the unthinkable, losing one our age, a best friend, losing Ross.

Losing these we love so much have really changed how I look at everything.  All of these ordinary days, gone.  Why didn't I take that extra picture?  How come I did not video Grandma helping my kids to open Christmas presents?  Where was that last picture Ross drew playing Pictionary?  Did I throw it away???  How could I have not realized how important those "ordinary" days were?  Why does it have to be after the fact before you realize and appreciate how amazing those ordinary days were?

So as we have spent the last three days (and last three weeks) busting our butts to get our place ready to sell I have had these images cross my mind constantly.  We are so excited about where we are going, and all that has to offer.  It is SO time for our little family, and Rob and I have made the sacrifices we need to make to make this happen.  I have no doubt it will be very good for our family and where we are headed.  All that being said, I still look at my four little condo walls and feel sad.  Sad to leave this place so very full of memories, and perhaps spirits of those loved ones to some extent.  I can look at my couch and see Ross's smiling face, or hear in my mind some silly joke he told me while sitting there.  I can stand by my girl's bathtub and picture my Mom on her knees giving Zoey a bubble bath there, and grinning from ear to ear at her playing with the bubbles.  I won't have those images in my mind's eye at the new place.  I worry that as time marches on and my own memory fades these images will be gone forever.  I just keep telling myself that many more beautiful, ordinary days are to come.  The trick is to just appreciate them, and hopefully document them as they do.  That is my challenge...document the beauty that is the ordinary day.