Lost in a Blue Friday

Today I'm finding myself in a blue mood - maybe it's the gloomy skies this morning or the busy weekend we have ahead of us, maybe it's stress from the last busy week(s), or that "busy" has become an all too common response to the question, "How are you?" lately. In the midst of this constantly busy life I realized this morning that I feel lonely. How can you feel lonely when you can't even keep up with your full calendar? Somehow, I can. Somehow, today all of our frequent moves and starting over is hitting me full force and, unfortunately for you (IS there any of you?) I've decided to share it on the blog.

This week I've been focusing on some home decorating. It's been an on-off project for the last year as we settled into our most recent home. While I'm hoping - no seriously praying - that this is our last house and last move and last start over, I'm also reluctant to decorate it. Partly this is out of spite - a home is something that is built over a long period of time and can't just be created in a year with new furniture and paint and silly store-bought accessories. I've always wanted our home to tell our story. I've wanted it to be welcoming to guests but more importantly I've wanted our kids to feel a part of it and feel the memories attached to it as they grow. How can I possibly create this when I keep having to start over!!? The home decorator in me is trying really hard to just make it comfy and inviting but the nearly 50 year old woman in me is just so sad that no matter what I put in here it feels too new when I feel old and it won't really tell our story. Our story is too full of beginnings. Just when I think I'm getting to a middle and putting down some roots and creating some real history, we end up starting over with another beginning again. Today I just feel so ungrounded - like I have been yanked up so many times I don't have any roots left to put down. Worst of all, I don't feel like the roots matter anymore. I want them to.

So, as I try to get out of this funk today and focus more on the house projects I'm supposed to be doing (curtains for my girls' rooms, painting my son's room and several other rooms that haven't been touched yet) I can't help feeling like I'm simply going through the motions of creating a home. Why? For myself and my family, you would think, right? I wish that was enough for me. It's not. I want to create warmth and charm and some form of fabricated history so others can see it and share it. I want people in my life. But starting over makes that so complicated. You see, they (whatever potential new friends we might find) are very busy people too. They are busy with their old friends and family that they've never had to leave and start over without. We are too far down on their wait list. What if, by the time we move up on that list, we end up having to start over again? With the fear of that happening - all that time wasted investing in new relationships - I find myself too tired of the waiting, too tired of being disappointed and moved away to invest any more time drawing people in. Focusing on the house for awhile seemed a good distraction. It's not really working.

Jill