The acoustics inside of my house are typically at a decibel level you wouldn’t want to contend with and the non-stop action will leave your head spinning.

There are so many days I longed for silence. A trip to the bathroom, without someone calling my name. Just 1 minute to sit without being touched or having to get up not even a second later to referee a sibling show down.

They say be careful what you wish for….

Now the house is silent, deafeningly silent, more days than I want to count.  

Continuous music drowns out the almost eerie energy inside of the walls when they aren’t here and I keep myself moving so I don’t collapse in despair.

Today it was unavoidable though. 

I was rushing to cram a million and one things into three hours when I saw the trucks carefully arranged on the dining room table as I was heading upstairs.

A snapshot of life frozen. 

I felt it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I tried so damn hard to fight it.

You are almost 8 months into this, I told myself. 

This is going to be what the long-haul looks like.  

Pull your shit together Colleen.

But I couldn’t.  

There are just some things that time doesn’t really seem to heal. In fact, opposite seems to be reality. The more time that goes by the more I miss.  So many firsts and last are slipping by that I no longer have access to. I’m continuing to grieve the immense loss of everything I had anticipated and prayed for while I laid on that OR table each time waiting for Kim to tell me I could breathe while simultaneously working on looking at the pockets of time I do have to parent them with a heart and mind of abundance. I know it sounds like a contraction and I honestly can’t say that my heart won’t ever not feel conflicted but I won’t stop trying to attain some level of peace inside.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I never imagined a life without the miracles that I was so graciously given to solely nurture for nine months. It was my body that housed them. My heart beat that they heart every minute of every day. I felt every summersault, every hiccup, every kick, every punch. I am in no way denying the importance of a healthy father in a child’s life, nor their bond. I can only speak from my personal experience and the connection on my end between myself and the six of them. It is INTENSE, I know every move they are about to make before they go into action. I feel everything they feel so deeply to the core of my being. I know that can never be severed no matter how many days were are forced to be apart from each other but it doesn’t make the strain felt on both sides any less real.

If there is one thing that this house frozen in time has taught me though it is to be present as much as I possibly can. Nothing is a guarantee. Soak in EVERY ounce of time even on those days you are completely spent. Feel the light in the darkness and just be as often as you can. 

I do know there is light and inner peace amidst your heart being tightly wound in piercingly sharp barbed wire because I can feel a calm deep within. I admit that I honestly don’t know how to ever be completely ok having those babies I carried, grew and nurtured every single day of their existence ripped out of my arms while I am exiled into silence but I have to trust an believe something good will come of all this.

HE knows what HE is doing even when you feel Goliath towering over you.

Xoxoxoxo

You’re Through The Insanity,

Colleen