Wrapping my head around

We are really just feeling the "long term" of this journey and that is heavy to push off daily. Things like grocery shopping, I miss. Making dinners, I miss. Baking cupcakes, which is rare, I miss. But it is the freedom to parent and raise the kids as I always thought was right for us that I miss most. The clear head, the mobility, the ability to think and choose and do in the moment. I guess we are trying to redefine even though we didn't actually choose to change things. It is very surreal. We were just getting out of baby days and looking foreword, and now... Trying to maintain the looking forward in the reality that it really is impossible to know what days will look like and not being naive to think I will live to be 101. I'd be grateful for 70. I beg God for 70. Would I really be happy with only 70? Less? I really hope not less. That's a new reality for me. I naively bumbled along and the loss of innocence is vast.

God is bigger. How could I get through this without that truth?

 That was last night.

This morning I woke up, thanked God for waking up, had some tears as I prayed for my husband, had some tears as I tried wrapping my head around things, came to the conclusion that what I am asking for is patience, stamina, balance, a cure.  A friend often asked, when we chatted about life with babies and toddlers, "are you surviving or thriving?"  I have used that as a self-check off and on since.  In this early morning quiet I have laid that phrase down.  Surviving isn't enough, too sad, too dragged out.  Thriving seems too chipper and massive to achieve or aim for even or maintain.  I want balance.  I hope to figure out how to be a patient, maintain my sanity around all the appointments and maintenance and long-distance marathon work that will entail, have joy, being in the moment but not only in 'this moment', figuring out how to plan for the future when the future is so very... mind-boggling.   My word is my bond, I have worked very hard to cultivate careful answerings to questions, not to lie, not to spill my guts at every turn, but not to lie or say something that could be construed as a lie or mistruth.  How do I answer my sweet baby 6 years old when he stares at me point-blank at the dinner table and demands, "When will you be done cancer, Mom?"  Heartbreak.  I don't know the answer.  Worse, I don't know how to answer.  And I'm the Mommy.  That's has been my joy.  I have cultivated, so carefully, the 'how to answer', through countless heart-hours about raising these children, actively pursued relationship with them.  And now I sit here tears just breaking out of me.  I just don't know.  The carpet has been shuffled up under my feet.  God is here.  He answers.  He hears.  He loves me.  He cares.  But I still have to do this work:  ask Him, trust Him, hope in Him, believe in His miraculous healing touch, know and trust that He loves us and these four amazing kids and my working-so-hard incredible husband.  My brain is just floundering.  And even in the midst of this, I have peace.  And I just am so grateful.  And that brings its own craziness of tears.  I guess that means I'm balanced, right?  Happy tears and reality-sucks sometimes-tears.  How do I talk to the kids?  How do I ever answer a question truthfully again without having to add some sort of macabre and depressing "unless I die before the next swim meet/ soccer game/ Christmas tradition..."  That doesn't seem a good option to me.  I want more.  I want joy.  I claim joy.  I claim healing.  I claim balance.  I claim wellness.  I claim enjoyable life for my husband and kids, my extended family.  I claim smiles and laughter.  I claim emotions that are real but that don't sink us.  I claim peace.  I claim protection for my kids' hearts.  I claim happiness.  I claim understanding and balance and patience with ourselves.  And I know that my God is bigger.  Adjusting.  I guess this is adjusting.