the space between

It's an idle Monday and I sit in the family room with my companionable cup of afternoon coffee. I kept Lucy home from school today--she's got a low grade fever and a nasty cough. She's taking a nap and the house is quiet.

I love days like today. I am thankful for them, the simple days with no agenda other than the familiar, daily rituals of tending to a home and family. Things feel like they've calmed down a bit since last week. Now that school is over for awhile, there's more space inside of me to think and feel all that is in my midst. I am starting get reacquainted with my home and the world around me.

The cold, gray morning spit rain against my windshield as I drove Tess to school. On our way through the neighborhood, I noticed these trees starting to blossom already. It seems too early for the little pink and white petals to start showing themselves. I remember it wasn't until mid March of last year that the trees behind our home were in full bloom.

Ever since 2012 hit, I feel as though someone pressed the fast-forward button on life.  Despite the almost-unbearable stagnancy of last summer and early fall, I knew time itself would speed up once the new year came. I didn't know that even the trees would feel it, rushing in with their spectacular colors almost a month early. The early signs of spring are already here, but the calendar and the chill in the air tell another story.

Life seems to be neither here nor there.  We reside in the space between, a sort of purgatory between winter and spring, between the tangible present and the unknown future. This space is obscure and painted in shades of grey. It is laced with conflicting emotions, the hopeful expectations of what is to come, the grief of what will be lost, the confusion of where to land in the midst of it all.

As I vacuumed the house this afternoon, I was suddenly aware of a shift in my perspective. Looking around our home, I now survey each object in the context of an upcoming move. Walking around in the girls' bedrooms, I thought about our tenants' children and how their belongings will soon occupy this space. It will no longer be ours. I imagined our furniture being loaded onto a moving truck, the picture frames around our house being wrapped in light brown paper and stacked in cardboard boxes, our lives soon to be uprooted, transported, and deposited in one more place, potentially for one last time.

I'll probably spend quite a bit of time talking about all of this in future posts--the conflicting emotions involved in becoming attached to a place and its people, only to have to leave and start new somewhere else. It's a pattern stamped deep into my story, and I'm aware of the cycle repeating itself as I soak in the things I love most about our life here during these final months.