About a year later...

Well, it's been way too long, yet again.  In fact, I'm afraid that my recollection of the last post was what triggered my memory to write again.  Regardless, I feel like time is going too fast and too slow all at once right now.  Darren just turned one, in fact, tomorrow he will be 13 months, and Eleanor's 4th birthday is coming up.  So many milestones and the holidays coming up, makes me a bit more reflective than normal, I guess.  With #4 on the way, due sometime between late February to early March if they are full term, it also marks the end of an era of my life.  We plan #4 to be our last, and it's a bittersweet experience already, just with the pregnancy.  I am in my 2nd trimester now, and if Heavenly Father doesn't throw any curve balls I will never ever be at that stage of pregnancy again.  With the nausea and pudginess, I can't say that it's a huge loss, but the first positive test, the first appointment, the planning and calculating of dates, ...it's a good time, too.

Also, as my depression meds timed out, my depression is back again.  And now that I am expecting again, I felt like I wanted to try more natural methods of controlling it, if possible.  I found out I am vitamin D deficient (big shock since I hardly ever get out, right?) and am boosting that to help combat it.  Anxiety has also returned in full swing, but could be partly due to the new house we are buying by the end of this year, the new baby, trying to find a preschool for Eleanor, trying to finish editing my novel and attempt to publish it, and the typical loneliness of the stay at home mom who can't drive and doesn't have super close friends nearby.

Life has been hard.  No, that is an understatement.  But underneath all of it, I feel like we will survive this.  Somehow.  And the purpose of all this hardship will someday make better sense to me than it does now.  

As a family, we all care about each other.  No matter if Garrett won't share his toys with Eleanor or if I forget/ postponed doing laundry when Tim needed something, or if Darren tries to eat the trash.  When it comes down to it, in the end, in the grand scheme of things, these are as nothing.  We love each other, that is what makes those kinds of things fade into the background.  Time does amazing things to pain and suffering.  It doesn't necessarily delete it or reverse the effects, but it makes it tolerable.  It even can put many things into perspective.  I figure that God must have matured in similar ways, if we can even fathom what God could have endured.  And if time can do such amazing things, then how much more can love do to help us through such hard times.  Love unselfish, no matter how natural it may be for one to show love for their spouse or children or parents or a friend, seems to me to be one of the greatest sources of strength when times are hard.  

I realize that I might sound very scattered and all over the place as I write this, but it is the best I can manage in this crazy world of mine with Darren constantly trying to grab my mouse and push buttons and Garrett needing something zipped, and listening to Eleanor fixing some pretend food for Garrett.  Feeling nauseous from the pregnancy and tired from the depression and tense from the anxiety, it is the best one could expect of me, if they saw things in my life as they really are.

Judging has been on my mind a lot lately, and how careful we ought to be with each other.  So much hatred and anger out there (especially with these coming elections), growing to full bloom.  So many people, reading others' opinions online, hoping that person has the same take on things and condemning them if they don't.  "So many", I'm sorry, I meant TOO many.

I want to make the world better, I want to stop pain from growing.  I have seen it myself through the eyes of my own suffering and I know that if it can be stopped  for anyone at any point along the timeline it's on, it will help significantly.

I am grateful for my children, their sweet innocence, their good intentions, their desire to be good.  Their milestones and these holidays and family time sometimes help me see it again in a fresh light.  How much I love them, how proud I am of them, how much good I feel they could do in the world.  They are 3 teachers who tutor me constantly and help me better understand my life and what it is all about.  And my husband is such a rock of strength and comfort to me.  

If I had any advice, from one suffering person to another, it would be to count your blessings.  Find the good in your life, even when it seems pointless, even when it seems trivial or silly.  Really, truly think of them, ponder on them, and drink them in like a medicine.  Time and love and God can help us through.  Deep down I think I will always believe that, no matter how hard things get.