The events of the past week are still fresh and affecting me. I think I thought I would be able to come home, take a day or two to recover, and then be okay to continue plodding through with life and school. My bed day didn’t even really hit me until today. The kids were off school again, this tie for cold instead of the holiday. Josh took them all to his mom’s to help with packing. They spent the afternoon there.

While they were gone I was going to work on school. I was behind with a few assignments that he’d just told me to turn in whenever. I’d tried to work on it down there and I couldn’t. I tried to work on it again today and all I could do was stare at the syllabus and think, “I really can’t do this.” Everyone says it’s an easy class, and so I thought I could handle two easy ones together. It was too much now.

So as of this afternoon, I dropped it. This means I won’t have all the classes done when the school closes. So I’m a little disappointed about that, but at the same time feel relieved. Four classes when nothing else is going on is okay. But honestly since the beginning of last spring, I have been dealing with additional emotional strain that hasn’t really come with many intervals of letting up. I am tired from all of it.

I think this is the fullest season of life we’ve ever had. Between the kids and their needs and activities, family members beginning to pass more, and our own individual things that the two of us are each involved in, it seems part of our responsibility to ourselves, each other, and others is to keep the white space of our lives from becoming too crowded. More than ever we need clear priorities, boundaries, space.

The work of death is ongoing. It doesn’t just come into our lives and then leave. My grandmother is praying for everyone else. My extended family is very sad. My mother-in-law is getting ready to move into her house near the end of this month or early in February. There is much that has had to go on since my father-in-law left us that does not include the pain of continuing on and living life in his absence.

Besides God obviously, the work for me as a wife and mother has been centered on keeping family first. Someone has to make supper, to make sure food is there to even make the supper with. It’s a part time job itself just to keep this place in decent working order at the very bare minimum level. The stuff influx management. Keeping the linen closet from becoming an unbearable view of disorder. This all takes work.

While they were gone I rested here. I want to have time and energy for the many things that matter, such as helping my mother-in-law move or talking to my kids or making supper. We don’t outgrow this. This sounds like I’m making a case for quitting my class, but I’m really just processing, just centering myself and taking time to rest and be. We’re all different, it looks different for all of us, but maybe not too much.