Rainy day emotions...

I was talking to Tim on the way home and the conversation turned to the awkwardness of the first divorced holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas are going to be different when the traditions that I've had for the past 12 years are going to be different.

And part of me needs them to the different. 

I need the separation. I need the forward motion of separate lives.

But instead, I feel a little stuck in a state of perpetual motion.

Gary seems hesitant to define his relationship with Mandy and wants to continue as normal with buying Christmas gifts and putting up the tree.

And that's not sitting with me well. 

When all of this started last year, I had visions that this year I'd be sitting at home and Tim would be there to help with the Christmas tree and decorations. 

There would be happiness and joy and a little more certainty about our direction. 

But there have been complications and this year has been crazy.

I want to be happy and joyful for my kids.

I want to be able to create some magic for them.

I want to be able to visit family and not worry about how they will react to my divorce.

I want to be able to make plans without a fear of the unknown.

This all hit me on the way home today and by the end of my conversation with Tim, I was crying.

He asked me not to be sad and offered to listen whenever I need him.

🧡

Moments like this, I am so thankful for him.

4 Individualist

As a part of our Life Group studies, we recently discovered the Enneagram. I have a thing for Personality Quizzes and enjoy the quirks that come with trying to typeset yourself for the sake of inner-definition.
When I took the Meyers-Briggs personality test, I was mildly surprised to learn that I am an ENFJ and that I am 51% extroverted. This was cool. I always thought of myself as being introverted, but this almost gave me a boost of confidence that allowed me to explore what being an extrovert meant, and as a result, I feel like I have seen my personality shift and open up.
Funny fact: Gary is also an ENFJ.
I am bewildered by this, but can come to accept it as true.

When we took the Enneagram personality test, I think I originally typed as a 9, but I didn't necessarily connect with it, or with it's definitions or motivations.
After a friend's suggestion, I started following an instagram account (www.instagram.com/enneagramandcoffee). So now, whenever I would visit Instagram, I would see these posts in my feed that started to help me define who I thought I was. Turns out, I had a pretty strong response to the 4s.

So then, when it came time to take the quiz for our LifeGroup, I typed myself as a 4. I think the results were slightly different (I don't remember the number), but I went back and looked at the questions that could have swayed it, and I re-considered them. In the end, a 4 was me.

Another funny thing...on one test, my husband ended up being typed as a 4 and I begged him to re-take it because I couldn't stand the thought of him being the same as me. Our friends said that that was a very 4 thing of me. lol.

And now, I am pretty caught up in all of it.

I find it fascinating.

4s are labeled as Romantic Individualists.

More of the story...1 to 2

"Callie?" "Yea, Rhett?" I turned around to face him. His eyes were sad and longing, like he wanted to say so much, but was searching for the right words. I stood there looking at him...searching his eyes for the truth that he was holding back. I couldn't believe how deep my feelings for him had grown in such a short amount of time. He grabbed my hands and sighed. What was going on? "I don't know how to say this, but this is goodbye. I've taken a contract in St.Louis and am heading out there next week." I froze. The world stopped. All of the blood in my body rushed to my hands and I could feel my pulse trying to escape through the tips of my fingers. I stood there trying to comprehend what he had just said. Had he not felt the same feelings that I was? "Listen, I know this is a shock. And I have feelings for you. But you are still with Patrick and you need to decide what that means to you before we go anywhere. I think this time will be good for us. We'll still talk. I can come down and see you. But you need to search your heart and find out where I fit in it." He touched the edge of my chin gently and gave me the softest kiss I could imagine. A tear fell down my cheek as I laid my forehead against his cheek. The wind picked up as if to force us to make a move and choose a direction. We stood there for a few seconds and then he sighed again, took a step back, turned around and walked away.

A week of shitty sleep had finally caught up to me. Between the rain on the roof and not being able to stop thinking about him, sleep had been infrequent and interrupted. It pissed me off. Sleep was something that I could rely on as a way to recharge, and now, I was totally drained. Work flew by, but I was on auto-pilot. I couldn't focus on anything. Luckily, I could keep my head down enough and chip away at the projects that I didn't draw too much attention. I was thankful when it came time to go home on Friday. Tonight I was seeing Patrick. I had avoided him all week, but tonight, I needed to talk to him and tell him everything.

When I came home, Lauren was there getting ready to go see John. I walked in the door and immediately crashed on the couch. "Hun, I don't know how much more of this I can take. What are you going to do? Have you heard from Rhett?" "I have to talk to Patrick tonight. And no, I haven't heard from him. I saw a picture he posted on Instagram on Monday of the St.Louis Arch, but I haven't heard a thing. It sucks." "Well maybe talking to Patrick will be a good thing. You need to move on and get back to the happy Callie that I know. Plus, Christmas is just a few weeks away. Tis' the season to be happy." "I know. You're right. I'll talk to Patrick tonight and we'll go from there."

I slipped into my bedroom and changed clothes. My embroidered jeans and a cream sweater provided just the right amount of comfort, yet were put-together enough for going to visit my boyfriend. "Hey! I am heading your way. Be there is 20." I texted Patrick as I walked out the door and down the street towards the Marta station. "Thanks love! See you soon. Be safe! I'll pick you up at North Avenue."

I got on the train and put my ear plugs in. The melodic beats and funky music of Two Feet's "Go Fuck Yourself" lulled me into another world. As much as I despised traveling via train, I did enjoy the being able to do nothing. The being able to sit and stare out a window as walls passed by. The autonomy of sitting amongst strangers and not necessarily feeling alone. As my ipod transitioned to Billie Eilish's "When the party's over", my mood fell again. I caught a glimpse of myself in the dark window and frowned. A few minutes later, I had arriving at North Avenue. I straightened up, paused the music, and returned the ear buds to my purse. As I walked out the turnstile, I saw Patrick standing there with a single red rose. Of course he had a rose. I smiled gently towards him and walked up to his embrace. He placed a kiss on my forehead and led me down the street and over the bridge to his apartment.

Last night's dreams...

From Sunday night/Monday morning:
Hawaii. On a beach. Dusk, almost pitch dark. I was with two other girls and we were on the beach preparing to look at something. We were wearing street clothes, not bathing suits.
There was a huge swing set. Set on the water, almost like there was a peninsula jutting out into the water just for this swing set. The two other girls were swinging. I went back towards the inland so that I could get a picture. It was going to be perfect for Instagram. When I turned around to take the picture and started a burst shot, I could see that there was a storm coming and in the background were these dark blue and purple clouds with lightning strikes going, framing the swing set.


From Monday night/Tuesday morning:
I was inside a sedan, in the middle of a crowded mall parking lot. It was daylight outside, but a bit overcast. It was me and two other girls. It could have been Laura and/or Katie and/or Lindsey R from Johns Creek. We were chatting and waiting for Robert to show up. I saw his car. It was a black sporty hatchback with custom rims and heavily-tinted windows. He came around the corner of the mall and parked in the same parking lot area, but a few rows over. He got out and scanned the parking lot cautiously. He spotted our car but didn't make note of it.
Then we were all inside. He was distracted and kind of all over the place. He was looking at things and talking to a salesperson about the Hockey jersey sweatshirt that he was interested in. It looked comfortable, but huge.
Then we were in an elevator. We were previously on the third floor of the mall and were traveling down slowly to the bottom floor. I was finally able to talk to him. I turned towards him, looked him in the eye, and asked him how he was and he responded with an "I'm good".

Last night's dreams...

Part 1-
It was snowing. We were staying at a ski resort. In order to get to our bungalow, we had to take a ski lift to the top. Ours was at the very top, the last in a line of bungalows and you would get to it by simply walking off of the ski lift. Once we had gotten off the lift, we walked to our bungalow which was actually a small RV. We could stand outside and look down the mountain and down the row of RVs all the way to the valley. It was getting dark.
The inside of the RV was cozy and tiny. It was brightly lit. There was a bed on one side and other useful RV things on the other.

Part 2-
There was some sort of parade-like thing going on. Maybe it was around the fourth. It was super sunny out and people were wearing sunglasses and summer clothes.
We were sitting on top of a firetruck. It was almost like it was a hayride situation (without the hay), on top of the truck. We were towards the back. And by we, I know there was at least one other person there with me, but I'm not certain who it was. There was a family sitting to the left of me and at the very back of the truck. I think the mom was next to me and her teenage son was along the very back next to a sibling. There was a bump that we went over and the teenage son fell off the truck and back under the truck. Then there was a bump like we had just run over something. We knew that he had been killed. We kept waiting for the driver to realize what had happened and it seemed like we were waiting for a long time for him to stop, but he never did.
And then I woke up. Just before I woke up though, I had a lucid thought that if the teenager fell behind the firetruck and we were going forward, he would have been fine.

Delight in the New Year!

The new year came upon our household pretty quietly.
Luckily, our kids are still young enough to not fully grasp the exciting prospect and promise of a brand new year, so when it was bedtime around 8ish, we all drifted to sleep without a hitch and woke up to a new year.
Which felt eerily similar to a same-old, run-of-the-mill, everyday day.

But that's okay!

I've got delight on the brain.
Ever since last semester's EHS course, delight has been my buzz-word.
And last week when I took Dayspring's quiz to discover your word of the year, delight was mine!
So now, delight as a buzz-work is more apparent than ever, and it has become my mantra for 2019.
I am going to look for joy in the small things.
Pay attention to details.
Invoke happiness.

I'm going to take this home and let Penny color it in.
She will find all sorts of delight in that.

"Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalms 37:4

"Oh, how sweet the light of day, and how wonderful to live in the sunshine! Even if you live a long time, don't take a single day for granted. Take delight in each light-filled hour, remembering that there will also be many dark days and that most of what comes your way is smoke." Ecclesiastes 11:7-8

-----

💛

Backyarding

A cabbage left over in the garden!

Looking for Roly Polys and collecting dirt.

Poutine, the bunny. Hubby named him. :)

Our storage shed. Gary and I both got locked in when the wind closed the doors shut. We had to punch the screen out of the left window, and then I had to shimmy up, out, and down to the ground. The kids were on the outside. We were on the inside. Mild panic ensued. In the end, all is well.