Simultaneous

It's quite difficult to pick up and write again after such a long hiatus.  I have spent the last year convinced that no one truly cares what others have to say.  We just want to make our point and walk away with it.  It's been a period of so much talking and so little listening and adding my voice to the noise seemed silly.  When things get loud, I tend to pull back. 

I don't know why I'm writing now, except I want to put thoughts down so I remember this time.

It's been a year of simultaneous.  I have felt maybe more then ever this overlapping of emotions and have been trying to make peace with that.  

Our life is noisy.  Not necessarily in the volume of our home, but in the volume in our days.  There is so much volume and my mind gets noisy.  It bounces from one space to the next.  One task to the next.  We pass on information and forget to pause.  I have forgotten this past year how much I need to pause, not to listen to others necessarily, but to hear my own heart.

  

Here is where the simultaneousness of our life has raged...I love our life.  It is so full of so many fabulous things.  Our business is growing.  Peace about my role in our business has settled in. We are surrounded by wonderful people on a daily basis.  Our children are healthy and happy and growing. In all the world, I still consider Chad my best friend, biggest cheerleader, and greatest love.

And yet...I am sad sometimes.  Profoundly. It's not a depressive sadness(I know that feeling).  It's these feelings of being both so thankful and content, yet missing a different path or place or people.

I miss Haiti.  I am so drawn to people who are doing meaningful work there.  I miss the ocean.  My mind always quieted next to the waves.  I miss God.  He's still there, but I've wandered away in the noise.  I think I miss myself...she retreated somewhere.  I don't think she is the same person she was a year ago, but I don't know, yet. 

Can you be both happy and sad?  I am.  And it's confusing. I don't want to change my life, but I do wonder how it could be different.  I'm excited for the direction our life is taking.  Our adoption is moving closer and more then anything my heart wants to be on the other side of it.  Our business is growing and we have dreams and plans for it.  Our children are showing themselves to be really amazing people, despite or because of us(I'll always argue despite of us), or well, both, simultaneously.  Despite the noise, Chad and I still manage to like each other often and love each other always.
So, I sit with all of this and wonder how I can be both happy and sad?  How can I both love the life I lead and look for a life that's different?  How would it be different?  Chad has asked me that and I'm not even sure.  Haiti, always.  If I was free, I'd go.  But I'm not and that's ok, but it hurts a part of my soul.  The ocean calls, but I'd want to take our life here with us, all the people...  

Simultaneous: existing, occurring, operating at the same time. Concurrent.