Reflections

We're packing up all our stuff ... again ... and it just feels weird to me. Sometimes I feel like life is just a series of transitions, though I'm not sure when that feeling started. When I was a kid, I was fortunate enough to live in a loving, Christian home where everything was pretty stable. I lived in the same house from age 2 to 22 (minus a year away at college), and my parents had very few changes in employment. I know Jason had a similar upbringing, as did a lot of my friends. But then suddenly, something happened. Adulthood maybe? Or maybe an entire generational shift? I'm not sure if what I'm experiencing is just a result of growing up, or if it's a result of a cultural change on a grander scale. Maybe my generation is just shifty and restless. Maybe as a whole, we demand "more" to capture our attention and keep us on our toes. Maybe we're too picky, too unsatisfied, too immature. But if that's the case, why is it that I look back at that stability I had as a child so fondly? I wonder if my parents experienced just as much transitional chaos as I sometimes feel I do, but they just dealt with it well and hid it from our innocent child-eyes. Or maybe they worked through the majority of their uncertainties before us kids were born, and they found that stability before starting a family.

I think it's unfortunate that I've waited so long to really look at "life issues" in a different light, in a way that makes me actually appreciate my parents and their relationship with each other and with their family in a totally new light, in a way that makes me want to go back in time and ask my dad all the questions I wasn't mature enough to put into words in the past or to even care much about. If I had known I'd be struggling with certain issues and stresses, I'd like to think I would have taken my uncertainties to a man who lived through the gamut and still managed to keep it all together. A man more loving and sincere than I could ever be. He put appearances aside and focused on what was important. I was never quite able to appreciate that about him the way that I should have. I guess I'm just missing him a lot right now. At this time last year, I was by his side in a hospital room, watching him deteriorate before my eyes. At the time, I didn't think I'd be able to handle him dying. I never ever thought something like that would happen to me so young (nobody ever "expects" tragedy). But it's true that God doesn't give us more than we can handle. As much as I want my dad back, it was simply amazing how at peace I was about his death when it actually happened. God was definitely at work.

Fortunately, I still have my mom as a resource and I talk to her all the time. I love that woman! But sometimes I just wish I'd tapped more into all that my dad had to offer ...