Sweeter focus.

Each autumn, I buy a new turtleneck, add an extra blanket on our bed, crave chilled red apples, and always, as if on cue, have an onset feeling of sadness. So, now you know where I've been. 

I said goodbye to my mom last Sunday, after our big flea market weekend (she babysat Thing 2 and Thing 1). I think I sent her home just as exhausted as we were. And while I was exhausted and cold and sad, I decided I needed a week to focus on sweeter things.   

Last week, 'sweet' equated to making the boys' halloween costumes, following around my eldest with a camera one warm afternoon, wearing no make-up for five days straight, making carribean quesadillas, planning morgan's birthday party, hanging new curtains in the dining room, deep breathing, and giving up a few tears. 

And you know what? It (mostly) all worked. 

Last night, we climbed into bed and into each others' arms and I counted all my blessings. (There were so many.) And this morning, as I snuggled Danny into my chest, I felt return that overwhelming sense of how perfectly I fit in this life of mine.

I can't say that I feel as though letting go is any easier for me (in fact, I think it has been/is/always will be my ever-present struggle). But I'm working on believing it when I tell myself: the here-and-now is just as good as what is gone.  

Someone sweet told me, “Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.” (R W Emerson)

 

Things that sit sweetly in my focus right now:

Yellow leaves on my front trees, a stained recipe card for chicken soup, breakfast yogurt on morgan's face, and new birthday toys scattered across the floor.

Tomorrow starts a themed month of gratitude. I think my heart's quite full.