We're doing the midnight bed dance again because the truth is: no one really knows where we are. Living out of suitcases for over a month, in our 4th round of beds in as many weeks, children bump on the floor in the night and cry out. They don't remember where the toilet is, where our room is, where home is. It's all we can do to spoon them back to sleep, propping our heads up on thin pillows, arms under their weary necks. It's all we can do to set an alarm, find a clean bowl, drive them to a new school.

The exciting adventure of our days gives way to fitful dreams and midnight cries.

I was praying for them, the night before we sent them to school, when we knew where we would settle but weren't quite settled there yet. We faced a long commute, an alarm set before dawn, and I woke at 4 unable to sleep, praying, praying, praying over them. My inclination, my first instinct is to pray, "Lord, keep them safe." But I thought, if that was our only priority, surely we wouldn't uproot them, put them on planes and trains, walk them through the doors of another new school. No, it's not safety we want for them.

It's courage. And faith.

So instead I prayed, "Lord, make them brave." It didn't put me back to sleep, but it put my heart in its place and my hope up high. Oh, I want them to be brave, to know they can, to wonder and doubt and cry a bit maybe (it's hard to be brave if nothing at all is scary), to know when they fall off the bed they'll be found and carried to safety, to hear the wind and see the rain and still long to run outside and face the storm.

Oh, God, give them courage. Make them brave. And give me strength to spoon them to sleep once more.



From January 2013

***

These are a few of my favourite posts from this year, things I've written during this epic phase of resettling in Ireland. If you blog, leave me a comment below with a favourite post of yours from this year. Would love to read how you saw yourself and those around you in 2013.

Nose-picking rhythms

Asher picks his nose before falling asleep. Every night, without fail, it is the last thing he does before closing his eyes. I know this because I am always beside him, sharing his twin bed, listening to his music, trying to coax him to sleep. On nights like tonight it takes just minutes. He plays with a couple of action figures, rolls to his side, picks his nose and out like a light.

Other nights are long and loud and full of tears, his and mine.

He's not yet fallen asleep on his own on this side of the ocean. Whether it's big brother or Matt or myself, he is in need of one of us in the dark hours. Last night was one of the long ones. I was trying to rock an angry three-year-old to sleep, except without a rocker, which was left behind in America. I've not wanted for many things we didn't take with us (the couch and the dining room table and the pallet headboard have all found better homes), but last night... all I could think in that moment was how much I missed the soft underlying rhythm of that rocking chair. And we both cried.

We are happy here, enjoying life here, having several victories in hand for every one overly-hard day. But we've got no rhythm, no backbeat. Asher cries in the night - every night - and we all switch beds. We're staying up too late and getting up too late. Eczema still lingers on my hands and on Ella's arms and legs. And I can't even begin to think about meal planning or cooking or grocery shopping. We're still eating in pasta-marinara-survival-mode. We still feel off.

When will we feel normal again? When will we sleep again? When will we eat well-balanced meals and go to bed at a decent hour and maybe sleep through the night again? When we will find a rhythm again?

As I bask in the success of a painless bedtime routine tonight (so far... the night is still young), I wonder if it isn't so much about us finding a rhythm, as it is letting the rhythm find us. I read an article in a magazine this week where a woman describes her lack of musical beat, her reticence to dance. Her husband tells her, "count the steps... let me lead you."

Count the steps... let me lead you.

What we're doing right now, we're counting the steps. We're learning the dance. We're getting the timing right and letting good days wash over us like rain after a long, long draught. And soon we look up and remember the way, feel the rhythm.

Our life here before, it's not like memory foam. We can't just lay into the dent our bodies once made. It's a whole new dance, but the backbeat, the reason, the calling and the God... still the same. And if the rhythm now is laying in bed every night next to a nose-picking toddler, He'll find me there... I hope.

***

Do you practice rhythms in your life? What are they? 

After 40 days

I just can't tell you what it's like, after 40 days of displacement, to see your children running up stairs and down hallways. 

To trip over Thomas and his friend Clarabel, tracks winding from the sitting room to the kitchen, long packed away and now breathing fresh air with the wee lad who has inherited them. 

To give an after school snack to your eldest, the sliding glass doors to the back garden framing his sturdy head as he bends over homework, the green of shrubs reflecting off the glare in his specs. 

To peek in on the girl, sick from a cold, asleep in her own room, in her own bed, cuddled up to the hippo we left behind over two years ago.

They're all here, in our new home, breathing new life into these walls. Oh, we are cleaning mildew and a little concerned about the bird living in our chimney, and the toilets are a bit - how shall we say - wanting. 

But we are putting down roots. Replanting our trees by the river. 

And now, I must wash the hippo. And the bedding. And every surface. Because now, we are home.

What's underfoot in your house today? Toys, illness, homework or mold?

It's a strange thing

The sun wants in, but I won't let it.

For a second there, a brief moment, when it was still 6-something-AM and the baby came screeching through the living room, I caught a glimpse of clouds. But they didn't last, and now the sun wants in, and I am enclosed behind shades.

It's a strange thing to long for darkness, to wish for storms, to lay awake listening for thunder only to fall asleep until the heat stirs you back into day again. I think this is how I've always lived my life, this Kansas girl, waiting for storms. Even on a cloudless day, I search for them, turning my head towards the wind.

***

When we first landed back in the States, we were surprised by the heat and the sun. We were tired and achey and hid from the outside world, putting ourselves back together again. Then one day - late afternoon - a clap of thunder, and the downpour came. Hail and wind and thick green skies. When the hail died down and long sheets of rain kept coming, we five ran for the street, dancing and laughing.

Broken edges rounded by a whetstone.

***

Some say I expect the worst, never hope for the best, always wait for the other shoe to drop. But this isn't true. The truth is I'm always hoping for the best, expecting a miracle, waiting for a surprise. I want brooding, dark thunderheads to drop rays of glory around us. I want to shout, "Yes, I knew it! I believed, and look, here it is!" I want to drink, to fill ourselves up with it. Cover the children in it, dance in it, throw it back up to the heavens in praise.

But this stale sun scorches my feet. My head hurts, temples throbbing. We keep indoors, curtains pulled closed, waiting.

It's 10-something-AM and I'm just now taking my coffee in bed.

Epilogue: It rained, today, at approximately 3-something-PM. Beautiful, warm, steam-inducing rain. I sat on the balcony with the baby, his knees scraped badly from a morning fall, kicking my feet under raindrops. I felt heavenly water dimple my face, and I cried.

What a surprise.

On not knowing, but believing

We've got a schooling situation on our hands. As in, we have none.

Our support account says we're at 82%, which means we can see the finish line. The 90% which allows us to buy plane tickets.

We wait for God to work.

And it is summer, and the girl is ready for elementary school, and the boy is ready for Irish school, and we've not yet enrolled them in the fall. Anywhere.

I'm not sure what this means, except I feel ready. But our apartment is still full and we still have work to do. I tell people this summer and they say, "Really? So soon?" I ask myself that, too, and think "Oh, maybe... I hope so? But maybe not...?" They tell me I should enroll them anyway, better safe than sorry.

But I tell them I don't yet have peace.

Even if I were to enroll them, I don't where they would go, don't know if we'll still be in this apartment (let alone this country), don't know if we'd need to transition somewhere else to finish the fundraising.

I don't know so many things.

"In August, God will tell us," I tell them, "He always has." And this is true. When it comes to our kids and schools, He's always shown us the way. He's always put us in the right place (even when we didn't want to be there), always opened up a spot (even when they said it was full), always been patient with us (even when we haven't been patient with Him).

We have friends in a similar situation, in a similar season of life (this waiting and going). When I share these thoughts with her she looks me straight in the eyes and says, "Don't enroll them." There is no hesitation, no pause at the timing, no gasp at the numbers. She believes.

It's misty and dark outside now... a rare reprieve from the heat and sun, dampening our thirsty grass.

I believe, too.

This time (the year before the year before) last year.

Holidays will do that to you.

Remind you of what was, or what isn't. You find yourself saying, "this time last year" or the year before, or the year before that.  You smile when you think of the first Ash Wednesday your son remembers, more for the pancakes than the ashes. And you walk the aisles of the supermarket, intent on maintaining any semblance of tradition through the years and the moves and the countries.

It's not terribly hard, not really all that sad. But it is movement, it is change, it is a longing for security and steadiness and sanity. It is not wanting to forget but also trying to move forward. It is hope and doubt, rolled into one. It is faith.

The email pings just now, a hotel or an airline or a booking agency. The emails never end, hinting that we should be going somewhere. We will, even if it's the slow steady ascent up the faith mountain, or a drive into the city to claim and wear the ashes.

After all... it's the Person - not the place - we seek. 

31 days of LIVING in transition :: i know it's there {day 26}

truth be told, these 31 days of living in transition have been more like days of dragging myself and barely surviving in transition. these 31 days started out rough and haven't quite yet made it out of the ditch. because the thing is, some people see a light at the end of the tunnel, an end to the transition, a start of something else, something new. and some don't, not right now.

i know it's there, but i don't yet see it.



{this post brought to you by no caps and the number 26}

31 days of LIVING in transition :: the process and the crazies {day 11}

Thought it might be good to define what I believe to be transition. Here's what the macbook dictionary says:

Yeah, that's a pretty good definition. I might edit it slightly:

Or, something looking like this:

the wee lad, experiencing the 1st Birthday transition

Yep, that seems about right.

Anyone and everyone is going through transition at any given time, whether it be moving, baby-making, graduating, healing, marrying, divorcing... any particular life event that takes you from one place of static living to another. 

I think it lasts one year because it typically takes experiencing the fullness of the seasons, holidays and milestones of a year to get a handle on things. {I say I'm going on seven years now of transitiony-ness because our events (new job, illness, moving, new baby, moving, new assignment, baby, moving, next assignment, moving) have all happened within each event's yearlong transition.}

And by the crazies, well, i think if you're still with me on day 11 (or year seven), you get it.

Tomorrow, we'll try to put the crazies behind us and get on with the living.

31 days of LIVING in transition :: hokey coping {day 10}

"You need to change how you cope with transition."

This is what one of our supervisors told me as we were readying to leave the field. At first I was taken aback and more than a little bit insulted. How dare she tell me that I don't cope well with transition. The nerve!

But the truth was I didn't cope well with transition. In fact, I didn't cope. I hid, buried my head, cried under the covers, put off the packing, escaped the cleaning, and pretty much just distanced myself as much as I could from the process. And it was still painful. And change still happened. Putting up a fight and refusing to participate just made the transition worse, and left me feeling lost and alone.

So with those words from my supervisor still ringing (and stinging) in my ears, I returned to the States and began our year(s) of transition looking for a different perspective.

I'm hoping that in this next week I can share with you some of the ways I've learnt to cope with transition. No big surprise here, but the most ready and obvious coping mechanism for all things hard and strange is to really, truly, purposefully live. Though that sounds all nice and hokey, there are some tangible, accessible, and daily things anyone can do to "live with intention while permanently living in transition."

At least, that's what I'm counting on.

31 days of LIVING in transition :: the lease {day 2}

On our desk sits a lease, expiration date two months from today. I look at it, fold it with my fingers, hold its weight and eye the highlighted terms. This lease, it weighs more in dreams and questions than it does in ounces. It is deep and fraught with decision. It is the beginning of the next, or the end of this current transition.

And I'm not sure which.

We are praying and planning. This much is obvious and has been stated more times on this blog and others, in prayer letters and small groups, at lunches and teas. There is no end to the praying and planning. And until a tangible number is reached or a ticket purchased, we continue this preparation circle. This dance with transition.



Transition is a terrible dancing partner, it should be said. Transition doesn't lead so well. And we don't follow transitions steps so swiftly. So instead we rely on the Choreographer. He places the steps, teaches us the moves, shows us where to put a foot, how to hold the head high. Shoulders back and eyes straight ahead.

We dance for Him.

And we keep the lease on the desk. Folded and unsigned.

31 days of LIVING in transition {day 1}

Well, the time has come for a little bit of discipline and accountability in my life.

And I have to tell you: I'm a little bit scared.

You see, God has been pushing me beyond my boundaries of laziness, stress, and frustration into a zen-like place of rest, peace, and intentionality. Ok, I'm not totally zen yet. But I have been moving towards the rest, liking the idea of peace, and practicing the art of intentionality.

Over the next 31 days, I hope to share about all these wonderful things with you, but for now, I leave you with the post number one. A call to live, wherever, whenever, and for however long that may be.

day 1

day 2 :: the lease

day 3 :: the books
day 4 :: the bungee
day 5 :: the long obedience
day 6 :: the days

day 7 :: the roots
day 8 :: the seasons
day 9 :: love the one you're with

day 10 :: hokey coping

day 11 :: the process and the crazies

day 12 :: leave your house

day 13 :: invite people in

day 14 :: for when it stinks

day 15 :: make a haven

day 16 :: the change

day 17 :: pretending

day 18 :: the annivesaries

day 19 :: falling into autumn

day 20 :: follow the leader

days 21-24 :: in pictures

day 25 :: fellow travelers

day 26 :: i know it's there

day 27 :: sans internet

day 28 :: finding narnia

day 29 :: a night off

day 30 :: resources

day 31 :: it's curtains for you

Seasonal affective disorder, in five

Yay Fridays!

It's raining, baby is sleeping, and I've got five minutes (I think!) to write down some prompted thoughts courtesy of TheGypsyMama and her Five Minute Fridays. If it's raining where you are, shove the kiddos in front of a cartoon for five minutes and give it a go. I promise, it won't ruin them... permanently, anyway.

When Seasons Change...

In Ireland, the only sure way I noticed the seasons change was by the placement of the sun in the sky. I knew winter was coming when I found myself squinting through my windows around dinnertime. I realized summer was on it's way when the boy woke me up hours before he needed to be dressed for school. The change in temperature was so casual, so incremental, that it held no clues for the seasons. It was all about the sun - or lack thereof.

Here, in Missouri, the seasons come quicker and heavier. The temp spikes early. The sun starts to burn a little. The grass turns green again (an anomoly here, as the grass is literally always greener in Ireland). The rain comes and the thunder booms. It is spring, nearly summer, and I love - LOVE - this time of year here in my homeland.

ok, so this is kansas actually - but you get the idea

And yet, I know there's still change ahead. Not just environmental change, but geography change, familial change, work change. This season our little five-person-unit is in is not meant to last forever, or very long, at all. It could be changing quicker than we realise, like summer coming to the midwest before we're ready for sweat on our brows. Or it could be longer, quieter, hardly noticeable, as we slowly see the sun rise higher and later into the day.

I don't know where this seasonal change will take us exactly, or when it will take place. But I feel it coming, I feel my body readying, and I can sense that the disorder that my life will soon become isn't really disorderly at all. This was how He made us: to change, and ebb, and flow with the seasons.

I hope I'm ready.

In hiding

So I'm hiding from the children, though technically I don't think it's as bad as it sounds. Not that there haven't been moments where I've shut myself in a closet or bathroom, lights turned off and tears streaming down, begging for a few brief seconds of silent, solitary confinement. For now, though, I'm just laying in bed for a few moments, feeling the breeze weave in through the open windows, enjoying the baby being (somewhat unhappily) in bed for a little bit, the big kids watching (very happily, now that we've majorly limited) cartoons for a little bit, and waiting for the feeling of peace to wash over me for a little bit before our evening begins.

I think I've come to realize the need for the little bits of hiding I squeeze in through these days and weeks. For 300 seconds the children will all be safe and happy and learning small lessons in their own solitary moments, while Mom gets her head and her heart and her soul in all the right places before a new phase (dinnertime, bathtime, bedtime) requires her to be fully present.

Until that session begins, I'm going to be fully present on this bed, smelling spring air and waiting for the breeze and peace to simultaneously pick me up and set me upright again. Usually all it takes is those 300 seconds. That's how long it takes me to know that we're all going to be just fine.

Old Home

"I want to go to our old home." Ella's been saying this a lot. All this time, I was thinking the transition back to the US would be harder on Jackson, but he's been here before. He seems to know the drill. But the girl was just a baby way back when. She didn't have the vocabulary (neither did we) at the time to ask where we were going or why we had left or when things would change. But now, she's all painful statements and sighs. She loves Gramma and Grampa's house, but she knows it's not really home. And she wants to know why the next home we go to won't be home either. And she really doesn't understand why we can't back to the old home, ever, even when we go back to Ireland. That old home is someone else's home now.

Everyone says home is where you are together. Home is the safe place you make for your children. As long as Matt and I are there, we're home. That's what they say. But that's not true. Family, together, safe, those are the places where we are together. But it's not home to a 3-year-old.

There are loads of awesome and amazing and totally spectacular things about the life we've chosen to live. New people, new families, adventures, fun, experiments, travel, joy, fellowship, meaning, love... literally long lists of awesome things. But in the other column, the one thing: no home.

Where we are here, is in a home, for now. Our for now home. I think she'll learn to make due.

Year 1 and transition observations

Having recently returned from a holiday with family in the States, we now find ourselves celebrating a milestone: us and Ireland one-year-old together. Part of me feels like this is more of a birthday than an anniversary, since last May 5th was the start of a brand new life for us. But either way you slice it, celebrations are in order.

We actually flew back to Ireland just days short of the anniversary of us moving to Ireland, however, the feelings that accompanied this most recent transition were so different. Last year when we left home, my heart nearly literally felt like it was breaking. That pain left me raw for weeks and months, but like some other types of grief, the shock and awe of it eventually began to fade, paving the way for new normalcy. When we flew out of Chicago this past Friday, that pain was nowhere to be found. Sure, we were definitely sad to say goodbye to our parents again and wished, of course, that our time together was longer. But upon boarding that plane, we knew we were going home. It was weird, really weird. But weird things can be good, too.

Another odd thing about our short trip back to the US: we, as people, felt different. It was hard to find comfort in the same old things, and sometimes, on occasion, even hard to find comfort in the same people from our old life. Not that we weren't overjoyed at seeing those same things and people again. Quite, the contrary, we had some very sweet (albeit short) reunions. Target welcomed me with open doors, while my mentor welcomed me with open arms. It was wonderful spending some times with our parents and siblings and the few friends we got to see. However, the food didn't taste as good as I remembered it. Shopping at Target confused me more than pleased me.  And there were some quiet patches, lapses in the conversation I didn't know how to fill. Maybe it was culture shock, or exhaustion, or the mental recognition that time was too short to share anything of real depth. Again, it was weird, really weird. But weird things can be sad, too.

So now we begin year 2. I still feel like I'm in a pregnancy funk, but the funk isn't as deep as it was before our little vacay. Maybe all I needed was just a little perspective. The grass isn't always greener on the other side. Unless the other side is Ireland. Then it is always greener. Literally. However, if it's the upper-midwest in the middle of April, then it's always a bit browner.

Good times with cousins.