I’m still trying to wrap my mind around everything that’s happened. “I just can’t believe I’m done”, I said to my husband while crying into my pillow. “Done with what?”, he asked, and I could hardly believe it. “Oh my gosh, man. Done with school”, I said. He said he was trying to keep track of my leap-frogging thoughts. I’d heard my son’s voice out in the living room and it sounded like Ethan, and I started to cry.

Josh had just been talking about the circuit visitors, one of whom is Laura’s dad. I was telling him too that I wasn’t going to go to church tonight after all. I was too exhausted, and just have given up on trying to understand the resistance. After the first of the year he will be done there and we can begin a new chapter, one that includes him not being a pastor for at least a year. These vacancies will just have to wait.

My boss just texted me saying she has to give me a first corrective action because I am so behind on my Relias requirements. I literally laughed out loud and then laughed some more. I told her I could come in next week to get done with them. I am also needing to cut back on my hours there and change up my schedule. I just haven’t been able to go through with it because this job has been so helpful for now.

I didn’t end up wearing the beige sweater and heart earrings. Instead I wore a grey sweater with orange ones. The heart ones felt like a little too much and I decided to save those for just a day in the office. I did wear them last night. I had my last internship class with the cohort and then my last foundations class after that. I am going to write my professor an email. I wouldn’t have been able to say it all then.

I did tell my Thrive professor today that he was a good teacher, and that it even went beyond that, that he had reached the level of sage. Arya and I are going to be his last cohort of internship students. He wants to be able to focus more energies on his retreats, maybe even doing them twice a year. I wish he could see that I am on the same mystic levels, that I could do a breakout session or lead one with him.

But for this moment I truly am content and grateful.

My son and I went to town for a cultural experience of going shopping in December. I was hoping to find a sweater to wear for the last day of school and also for Joyful Hearts Christmas. The campers come Friday and leave Saturday afternoon. I felt led to try TJ Maxx first and sadly had no luck there. It was a race against the clock to stay within the window from willing shopper to an annoyed one. We went to Target, then nowhere else.

I bought another beige sweater. My son said he thought it seemed like I already had one like that. I still have not figured out where to shop that will let me find clothes that fit my body and style. I also found a pair of double heart earrings with an arrow shooting through them. The color was that softer, more pinkish red I like more as a color. I have another beige heart sweater, two heart necklaces, and a now a set of heart earrings.

We browsed the Lego section. The boxes are already so picked over. He picked out a package of sour skittles at the self-check out station. The nice check out lady came over and helped us because he scanned the skittles on a crinkled part of the bag and it froze the machine. We walked outside and saw the far off van. I said to him, see that van? I told him now we will walk to the van, and we will thank God for the gift of health and youth.

My Monday night class was cancelled again on the last night. She sent out an email telling us to enjoy our break and to turn in something that looks like a case conceptualization. She said she knows everyone has been struggling to get to the end of the semester including her and she wanted us to engage in some self-care tonight. I was actually disappointed this time that we didn’t get to have our last class as a group.

I had a session today at Thrive and then a video review with the supervisor. He has to review a video per semester. As I was packing up he asked if I was any closer to making a decision about where to go workwise. Of the three places that I have considered, I have talked myself into and out of each one. During our meeting I got an email from the Hope supervisor saying that room availability and part-time position had opened up.

Hope is the only place that gets me excited, so I was happy to hear from them, in that calm and grounded way. She gave me dates to set up a meeting for after the first of the year.

I’ve been telling the kids for years that we’re going to have a small Christmas but then I never go through with it. This is the year I think it finally needs to happen. The other day I looked up my student loan account after not paying any more attention to it since two years ago when I first took them out. It didn’t have me scheduled for any repayment until 2031. In the past two years there has been nearly $3,000 in interest accumulation.

So that was disheartening. I’m definitely ready to be making money at this point. Before that can happen my degree has to post and then all that information has to be sent in to the licensure board so I can be issued a license. The whole process takes anywhere from 6-12 weeks. I feel like Thomas after Jesus’ resurrection. It’s like until I see all my grades on the screen and pass the last grading day I will not believe this is actually over.

Josh’s mom and sister and family will be on a cruise over Christmas. I told the kids there are several ways we could do this. Instead of buying tons of presents, I could focus on having a few really great meals. We could go see the David movie as an experience gift. It’s not like they wouldn’t have any presents at all, it just would not be the focus.

I’ve been thoroughly spoiled for my birthday over the past several days. Wednesday evening after church there were five presents on the floor. Two of them were different kinds of socks, a set of long ones and short ones. Another was a long white scarf. Another was a set of white mittens. The last one was a white snow hat.

So I was happy with all of those. I’d also said (before this) that all I really wanted for our basement to smell good and for our house not to smell. So yesterday when I came home from my CPR certification class, the house smelled like apples and cinnamon that were simmering on the stove. This is something my mom used to do.

And then in the evening the boys went downstairs and sprinkled some sort of baking soda mixture all around the basement. They had picked up all the legos and all the things on Ethan’s floor that I haven’t yet had the inspiration to deal with. Dad came home from an elder’s meeting and told the boys to vacuum up the powder.

So then I was supposed to go downstairs to smell it. I was finding all of this very amusing and sweet. I have thought at times that I might have to accept that new carpet might be one of those things that never happens in this lifetime, and could I be okay with that? In my mind the carpet would be the last thing the house needs.

Tonight we all went to Cancun, the little Mexican place in town. After that we drove over to watch the light show. I haven’t really gotten into the Christmas spirit much yet but this little drive helped. It at least got me thinking about it. For school today I did an online final and finished the required sexual harassment training video.

It was nice to have some blue skies and sunshine today. The day began early with some frequently interrupted sleep. We were together in the middle of the night for a while and then I ended up moving to the guest room thinking maybe that would help. I let the cat stay in there which as a mistake since I know she scratches at the mirror in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. So I eventually put her out in the halllway.

And within another round of dreams and drifting back off to sleep I awoke to the sound of the same cat fighting in the hallway with another. By this point I had reached irritation levels and I was grateful that this remains more or less now a foreign and unfrequently visited state. I fell back asleep and was soon awake again at the sound of boys taking their showers. The pipes in our walls are loud in the mornings.

So I was up after that but made up for it later. The afternoon was spent catching up on the naps I had missed in the night. There was one in the early afternoon and when I woke up I knew it had not been enough. Dad left for chapel and came back with me progressing from a second nap. The boys came home from school and I eventually came out to work on the pizza crusts. Before that we took a wintery walk outside in the paths.

The desk girl at Thrive is quitting at the end of the semester. She’s starting another job that will give her more experience related to nursing. He mentioned it a few weeks ago and I asked him nothing more about it. We’re supposed to be switching software systems in January to a simpler one that is completely web based. I have my own login and password there. I have my own email there. I have my own key to the building.

So why this isn’t just a complete no-brainer in terms of decision making I really don’t know. I came home from being there and went straight to my bed and cried. Josh came in and asked what was wrong. I started to say something like being frustrated that I can’t just make up my mind, that I can’t just know what I’m doing. But there was something deeper that came out instead. I said it’s because I am losing my freedom.

And boy did the gut feel it then with wrenching sobs. Transitions are hard, he said. They are, I said back. In supervision I’d asked if there were any new students starting up next semester. He said there maybe was one, but that he was also really thinking not to have students anymore. It is a lot of time, unpaid, and we can be awfully needy at times. Those were my words not his. I stopped short of telling him he was a good teacher.

I saw an Instagram post from an older mom with a newborn. She was talking about how sad it made her that her son would never remember her falling in love with him every night. I totally get it. It doesn’t make me sad anymore to think of how these times we had are not remembered. Anymore I just feel like those nights were my special gift from God in heaven. He was there with me too filling me with so much love.

I wonder sometimes if it would make the dads jealous. It’s not like we don’t love them. It’s just not the same overpowering physiological drive. To be close. To kiss constantly. To feel like this person is the light of your world.

Well anyway I don’t have to worry about that. I was finishing my grid this afternoon and reviewing my power point slides from April. Thank the Lord I had done that. I had a slide in there, in one of the self-in-process sections, about grieving my past seasons of life, particularly in relation to being a mom. It had a nice little picture of nature, but it no longer felt relevant so I deleted it. I replaced it with a simple summary.

I’ve got one more major project before I can finally rest easy. In what can only be attributed to a divine provision of mental clarity, I finished the final big assignment for one class, found a regular but “me” video clip that I felt comfortable using, and got to work on cranking out what needs to be done still for my grid. I’m supposed to understand my theory much better by now and I can honestly say that I feel like I do.

So that will feel good to have all of that behind me. Class tonight was cancelled because of the weather. I think that might be five or six times this semester we haven’t had class. I cannot thank Alexis enough for being highly influential in me not taking the trauma class. I just want to get up there, finish my talk, and be done.

I don’t even know what I’ll think about from now on. There are aches and pains I need to attend to. A weight that is ten pounds away from my highest first pregnancy weight. A degree that I need to figure out what to do with. But that will all come with time should the good Lord allow it. People are created to exist in connection. He gives us relationships where we are able to develop, grow, and be true to our fullest selves.

One of the boys came and told me that he desperately needed something to eat. It was lunchtime and he hadn’t eaten very much for breakfast. So once everything was loaded up and unpacked I heated up some leftover from the soup we had Thursday, adding some of the leftover mashed potatoes to make it heartier for him, and we ate lunch all together in the living room. Zorro was there too on his blanket by the sliding door.

Dad had some good ideas on what to do for Advent this year. He had the idea to have screen free evenings in the basement by the fire. We can play board games, or read, or do some readings down there. I asked if this meant I couldn’t blog in the evening and he said we could maybe make some timed exceptions. He said too we could spent time cleaning and getting it ready for the kids to be down there during Christmastime.

I liked all of these ideas. I’m seeing Christmas things around and am nowhere even near there yet. I said to Christmas, “You know, you are going to have to wait. I am not going to jump right into you.” Not because I’m some kind of Advent purist but because it doesn’t feel time yet. It has to feel right before you take out the boxes. This year has truly gone by so fast it hardly seems time for December to be here but the sky is still turning.