A few weeks into my blogging hiatus, Caleb helpfully bumped my arm while I was holding a cup of coffee...directly over my laptop keyboard.
It did not end well.
At the time, I decided it was kind of the perfect turn of events: No internet for Lent? Well, since I now had no computer, this would be no problem! I started setting aside a little money to buy a new one after Easter and didn't worry too much about it.
Then my car broke down, and it took my entire laptop budget to fix it.
Then Andy's car broke down, and it took a few thousand dollars more to fix it.
But! I decided to look on the bright side, namely that we could afford these repairs up front. (There's also the privilege of owning two cars in general. Maintaining them is a part of life, even when it sucks.)
Fast forward to the end of July, and I have a sparkly new gem sitting on my lap. Not that I'll be able to hold it here for much longer, because this also happened during Lent:
Our second baby boy is due in early November, and I can't wait to see Caleb as a big brother. (Cue heart-eyed emojis for days.)
I have about, oh, a thousand more things I want to say. Not writing for months (but still reading and watching the news and, I don't know, BREATHING) will do that to a person. Especially if pounding it out on a keyboard is how you process the world. There is certainly some lighthearted nonsense I want to share, and the usual this-and-that, but I think I "tend towards melancholy," which is how I once heard Barbara Brown Taylor describe herself in an interview. I look around at all this stuff that's too heavy and so serious, and I want to examine it from every possible angle, and before I know it I've managed to absorb its energy into my bloodstream. If I'm not careful it eventually takes up residence in my heart and mind instead of filtering back out, and then one day I wake up and wonder why I'm barely functioning.
How do you unpack baggage like that? It's hard, unzipping the suitcase. Sometimes you just have to sit and stare at it for a few minutes, then go put on Netflix and make a snack, and come back to face it when the weather and timing and karma feels right. (It should come as no surprise that I'm terrible about putting things away in the literal sense as well, especially after a trip. It can take weeks.)
For now, my only goal is to keep getting up each and every day and loving the ones in front of me to the best of my ability. I'm only human, and sometimes? Sometimes the full suitcase gets shoved under the bed. Guess this post is like me finally taking a peek at the contents, knowing that one of these days, I'll get around to airing everything out ;)
