The Haitus

So we're quoting ancient Epics now. It's been a while since I posted, duh, like almost a year. That's like forever in blogging world. I've been seeing dragonflies again, must be the season. 'Tis also the season for courage. I'm getting ready to enter my final year of undergraduate work, apply for graduate school, and everything else that goes with existence.

I will say living with my mother has been great, especially when my son and I were spending most of our days at school. My dog has now adopted my mother and spends more with her than me. She keeps us fed, sane, and always stocked with toilet paper.

I've found courage, still eyeing it with hesitation, but I've picked up the bag a little bit lately. I gave my first outside conference presentation and it went well. I received good feedback and critiques. My next research project is getting started.

If you've followed my blogging over the years (waves at that one or two of you), this picture still gets me. The boy turns 20 this fall and he's matured in ways that make a parent proud.

But his story is his now and I am still standing in the distance watching him walk a path, more man than boy. So many of us are watching our kids on their adult journeys and I see their pictures on Facebook and I remember when we all had elementary school kids and hopes and dreams were just that. Now those hopes and dreams may be part of the path, the journey not always as we had planned, but we love our children through it all.

Anyway, that's his story, not mine. Courage is hard, courage is not without fear, and courage can leave you breathless in the hope that you're making the right choice, the right choice for you that is. Courage sometimes takes us to the edge and we stand there hoping the chasm is not as extreme as it appears. It helps to have friends, people that care, nearby to remind you to either back up or help you see the edge is just a break between the here and there. Sometimes that line can appear so wide when the reality is it's like grout in the tile, just step over and you'll be fine.

This next year is bound to bring some of those edge moments. What the reality will be, I do not know. Right now all I see is the chasm.