Summer Reflections

Another summer is drawing to a close.  It has felt both long and short, at times.  As I think I mentioned in another post, summer brings an end to most of my adult connections, and it has often felt long and lonely, as I am missing that.  Yet, I love having all my kids at home.  I am a homeschooling mum at heart, even though my kids are going to school.  This year is especially poignant as I send my second son off to school for the first time.  He will be in grade 2.  I am going to miss him and his presence dreadfully.  He and I have bonded a lot in the past two years while his older brother was at school.  Rory is going to miss him a lot, too.  They are pretty sweet playmates most of the time, if it is just the two of them.

This fall also brings me to a new chapter, which is making me more nervous every day.  I am heading back into the world of education and going back to school.  It will be very part-time, with perhaps only one class this semester.  I am taking Library Information and Technology.  It is a 2 year diploma that will take me 4-5 years to do online, part-time, through the University of the Fraser Valley.  I am excited about the possibilities, but nervous about being a student, along with being Mum, chauffeur, cook, nurse, life manager, and all the roles I play every day.  The last time I was a student, I was just a student.  I basically never had any other responsibilities.  I don't handle pressure and deadlines all that well, so please pray for me, and my kidlets, as we dive into this new endeavor.  They are my priority.  They always have been, and will continue to be.  I do not want my family on the back burner while I pursue this diploma.  But I need it.  I need it in order to support my family someday.  God has led me here.  I need to trust.  As I said, please pray.  Also, please storm Heaven for my financial needs for school.  I do not want loans, so I am praying for grants and for certain other things to come through.  I am trusting that God will provide just what I need when I need it.  He led me here, so I know He will provide what I need when I need it.  He is so good.

Another thing that has happened this summer has been the beginning of a bedroom transformation for me.  Since I moved back to Canada in 2010, I had to basically replace all my household furnishings, since we got rid of a lot when we left Victoria in 2007.  The one room that still had all the furniture that I shared with my ex-husband was my bedroom.  In 2011, I decided I was going to redo my entire bedroom.  Everything.  The first thing I could do was change my duvet cover.  I bought one that was bright and colourful and full of flowers and very, very girly.  It was not something I ever would have bought while married.  I listed my dresser and night stands and waited for them to sell.  And waited.  And waited.

I attach sentimental value to things, at times.  14 years ago, when I got married, we shopped for furniture for our new home.  Most things were simply practical, and most were basic and inexpensive.  But bedroom dressers were different.  My parents had a set in their bedroom that, while they didn't have it right when they got married, it was in their bedroom my entire life, and in fact, they only just got new dressers themselves, this year.  I wanted a beautiful, heirloom-type dresser that my children would see every day, that they would grow up knowing that Mum and Dad had had their entire marriage.  It may sound silly, but it meant something to me.  We shopped around for a long time and found a set that I loved and I always thought had a very classic look and feel to it.  It was (and may remain) the most expensive furniture I've ever bought.

But then that dream got kicked in the teeth, and I didn't really want that furniture anymore.  I listed them, and, as mentioned, they didn't sell.  Not one bite.  For almost two years, I tried to sell them.  I slowly kept lowering the price.  Finally, someone bit.  Last Wednesday, they finally sold, I watched a truck drive them away, and I felt another dose of freedom wash over me.  The shedding of a life/marriage can take so long, but every bit I shed feels so good, because so many of the "things" feel like they carried some of the dysfunction.  Even selling dressers can feel so healthy.

Then, just the other day, I sold my king size bed.  I don't need a king-size bed.  There are no longer 4 people sharing my bed, which was the original reason for buying that bed back when my second son was born.  Not to mention, my bedroom isn't very big, and it was basically just bed, with a path to walk around it.  I am amazed at how quickly all this furniture went, and how it all happened at the same time IKEA was having their "Bedroom Event".  I love IKEA (I could write a whole post on my IKEA love) and had my "dream bedroom" chosen from there for a LONG time, while I waited for stuff to sell.  On Monday, I drove up and bought a new dresser, one new night stand, and a beautiful, girly, bed frame.  Yesterday, I bought a new mattress, which will be delivered tomorrow.  I have bought it all with money that I earned from selling stuff.  I have a bit more stuff to sell before I can completely finish the "Dream Room", but it's going to be my haven.  It's going to be ME.  It will have NO reminders of my marriage.  When I sleep on my new mattress, it will be the first mattress I've owned in 14 years that I have NOT shared with the man who used to be my husband, and THAT feels pretty freaking freeing, too!!  Wow.  Who knew?  Who knew that furniture could be healing?

I really love my life.  Kids, school (nerves and all!), a cozy home, a new bedroom haven... Simplicity and joy.  That is living.