The house is terribly quiet this morning, as is the street outside, and all the animals. There is no sound except the lightest tap from my keyboard keys. It's the silent precursor to the change of seasons I have so longed for and so dreaded.
Nick leaves again today.
It feels like only days ago that he was striding into the house again, full of life and laughter, filling up the room with his smile. It seems like just minutes ago, surgery and rehab, and silly days of wrapping his legs in trash bags to shower.
He walks back out today, so much closer to his long awaited realization of the one dream I've heard pass his lips since he was a boy of 9: "I'm going to play quarterback." Almost three years have passed since he was in uniform. It feels like someone else's lifetime. The quiet brings it all back, all at once. I have to let him go in the hopes that everything he dreams will finally come to pass, knowing they won't all come true, assured that new, as yet unknown, ones will take their place and bring just as much hope and joy and longing, because life rolls on for all of us in that way.
I named my blog Wanderings, albeit in much prettier letters (at least to me) because of my tendency to follow the little trails away from the main road. Anyone who knows me, knows I can't be trusted to stick to the path. The interesting things are always in the shadows, too close to the water, or the edge. The best conversations come out of questions you hadn't thought to ask until they come tumbling out of your mouth. The butterflies and birds fly past and I have to chase them to see where they land. But I always seem to find my way back.
I hope this for Nick today. That he can take his eyes off the highway (purely metaphorically) to see the dirt roads and tributaries that might hold unexpected surprises and unknown delight, if he can only relax enough to let them find him.
I can't live his life for him. And, to be honest, I don't want to. Mine is more than enough to keep me wandering. I'll never see enough, think enough, feel enough to fill up my own lifetime adequately. His is waiting for him to fill for himself.
May the door he walks out of today bring him back home to me, the wonderful Nick he's always been, and still changed in ways that make him more Nick than I can even imagine.
Nick leaves again today.
It feels like only days ago that he was striding into the house again, full of life and laughter, filling up the room with his smile. It seems like just minutes ago, surgery and rehab, and silly days of wrapping his legs in trash bags to shower.
He walks back out today, so much closer to his long awaited realization of the one dream I've heard pass his lips since he was a boy of 9: "I'm going to play quarterback." Almost three years have passed since he was in uniform. It feels like someone else's lifetime. The quiet brings it all back, all at once. I have to let him go in the hopes that everything he dreams will finally come to pass, knowing they won't all come true, assured that new, as yet unknown, ones will take their place and bring just as much hope and joy and longing, because life rolls on for all of us in that way.
I named my blog Wanderings, albeit in much prettier letters (at least to me) because of my tendency to follow the little trails away from the main road. Anyone who knows me, knows I can't be trusted to stick to the path. The interesting things are always in the shadows, too close to the water, or the edge. The best conversations come out of questions you hadn't thought to ask until they come tumbling out of your mouth. The butterflies and birds fly past and I have to chase them to see where they land. But I always seem to find my way back.
I hope this for Nick today. That he can take his eyes off the highway (purely metaphorically) to see the dirt roads and tributaries that might hold unexpected surprises and unknown delight, if he can only relax enough to let them find him.
I can't live his life for him. And, to be honest, I don't want to. Mine is more than enough to keep me wandering. I'll never see enough, think enough, feel enough to fill up my own lifetime adequately. His is waiting for him to fill for himself.
May the door he walks out of today bring him back home to me, the wonderful Nick he's always been, and still changed in ways that make him more Nick than I can even imagine.
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