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It seems fitting that the air is getting crisp and the leaves around me are a blaze of color. Seasons change, not just in nature but in our lives too.
My season is changing.
For the past two years there has been this struggle inside me, not wanting to letting go of the season I was in.
I first talked about it HERE when my hubs bought me chickens and again, HERE, last spring.
This inevitable change got real this year when my doctor discovered that my illnesses and steady health decline had come from a negative auto-immune response my body had to pregnancy. I will never forget that moment, sitting in the doctor’s office, when I was told that my body couldn’t sustain more children. My messed up ears tried to block the sound and yet it echoed through them all the way down into my very soul. As I drove the long road back up the mountain, I let myself cry. The most difficult and most beloved chapter of my life had just ended for good, whether I was ready or not.
I know that for some of you, this all may sound silly. I have 4 healthy and happy children, and trust me I get it but, if you have to say that, then you don’t understand.
You see, never in my life have I felt such purpose as I did as a young mother.
Those years full of babies and tiny children were absolutely the hardest and yet most rewarding of my life. It’s when I fully understood who my Father in Heaven was and how someone could love unconditionally. It’s when I lost myself, and in the process, where I found myself also. I have never grown as much as a person in all my previous years combined as I did during those short years of late night feedings, wiping noses, and kissing owies. And, though I was utterly exhausted and pushed beyond my limit, I felt completely blessed and whole.
Some women find their purpose in a corporate office, some on a remote mountain top, and some may find it late at night in a busy emergency room, or giving their all to a classroom of teenagers.
I found mine in the trenches of motherhood while serving 4 tiny humans and one giant man.
In the blink of an eye, my days of babies are history and my tiny humans are growing up.
My roly-poly has now sprouted into a handsome, skinny young man who is on the countdown to be taller than me by the end of the month. Some days I just sit and stare at his men’s size 10 shoes in awe as it doesn’t seem possible that they could belong to my son. His voice is changing and his shoulders are slowly becoming strong and broad like his father’s.
My Lou Lou will be a pre-teen in a few short months. Her curves are just beginning to show and her features are no longer those of a little girl. She is as smart as a whip and I’m pretty sure she could out read a librarian. Her days of dolls and playing house are rapidly coming to a close. What a tender mercy for me that she still loves to play in the mud and that those piercing baby blues are still just as full of mischief and wonder.
Miss June, my glorious ray of sunshine, now has hair cascading down her back and enough spunk to light up an entire city block for a week. She ties her own shoes, makes her own lunch, and even writes her own stories. It is a well known fact around these parts that you have not experienced the true magnitude of a hug until you’ve been wrapped up tightly by June.
Her hugs are heaven on earth.
My Baby Girl is no longer a baby girl. That fact hit me hard this weekend as I watched her running just as fast as the big girls and taking such good care of her younger cousins. I am cherishing every day I have with her little 4 year old self because on the horizon I can see age 5. I don’t want to miss a thing.
Perhaps it is her growth that has been the hardest to witness. My last baby, the last leaf of the season. She started preschool last month and she couldn’t be more thrilled. Our newly acquired pre-school routine has opened up something that I haven’t had to myself in over 11 years… time.
My new season has begun.
Even though I mourn the loss of the last one, I am excited for what this next phase will bring. This new gift of time has been inspiring and reinvigorating. Dreams that I had put high up on a shelf for over a decade are now becoming a reality. I am taking on challenges and experiences that I never thought I’d ever have the courage to try.
My children are growing up, and so am I.
My life is in a bit of upheaval and I am overwhelmed, yet happy. I’ve got 30 plates spinning, dinner cooking, YOUNG WOMENS, a messy house, a busy/traveling husband, a table full of math homework that I have no clue how to help my kids with, and the Mag taxi to drive among a hundred other things. In the middle of it all, I’ve started my own little business and with that, this blog is getting a makeover. I ask for your patience as I try to mesh it all together.
My life may be pretty chaotic for a while, but I guess that just comes with the changing of the seasons. A chill hits the air, the leaves change their colors, the landscape becomes a flurry of movement and then, slowly and silently, the snowflakes peacefully begin to fall.
I have faith that with a whole lot of prayer, PRACTICING MY BREATHING, and some good old fashioned hard work, things will eventually fall into place.
In the mean time, I’m just going to enjoy the beauty in the changing of the seasons.
Enjoy my sweet girl, one day at a time! I love you dearly.
I loved this, Missy! thank you for your beautiful words.
It seems like it was just yesterday we were walking our kids to the park or sitting at McD’s trying to get them to burn some energy. Time goes by too fast! Brace yourself for the preteen years with three girls. It’s hard.
This is beautiful. And I’m sorry Missy… That must have been terrible to hear from the doctor. Love you!