Never Enough Time - Enjoy Every Moment We're Given

I'd love to tell you that I've been away on some fantastic vacay, but the truth is plain-vanilla boring.  I've been here, concussed and foggy- but more or less here, doing the normal every day living.  I go to work, I come home and say hello to whatever girlies happen to be home at the time, and I complain about the dogs.  Normal... Boring!

(Except for the day at Pineview with my besties and the adventure of FIVE of the girls getting pulled over by the water police.. but that's a story for another day!)

During those rare, quiet moments.. I think about my life and how lucky I am to be where I am, surrounded by my favorite people on the planet.  It's getting harder and harder to catch time with my lovelies as they get older and their lives, which have been somewhat pliable up until this point (think Play-Dough pliable and you'll get my meaning), have suddenly taken on a more concrete form... a form in which I'm more of a supporting actress, or extra, instead of the lead.

Wow... did any of that make sense?  If not then let's go ahead and blame the concussion since that excuse is really working for me lately. 

My point is that my girls are growing up. Their lives are becoming their own and I find myself more and more on the fringes... trying to understand this new way of life and what it means for my family. It's hard to let go. I have nurtured and cared for these little creatures their whole lives.. I've known where they were almost every minute.. and now I find that sometimes entire days pass by without communication with one or more of my girls. Ouch and double ouch.

Just yesterday I was driving past the high school when I noticed a strikingly familiar red Jeep parked in the otherwise empty lot. I wondered out loud if that was my Emily's Jeep parked there and then I was amazed that I had no idea where my girls were at that point in time. Wow. Just.. wow.  Turns out it was Emily's Jeep and she was there goofing off with friends. But the point is that my little ones have grown up and are running their own lives more and more.

I need to find a way to make this difficult adjustment.

Hubby and I were talking last night about how we need to figure this new lifestyle out soon because the frantic pace of trying to keep up with everything is wearing us out! While I don't like the idea of accepting the splintered family evenings, I don't see much of a choice. Just the other day, we went up to the reservoir and had to swallow the bitter pill of leaving one of the girls behind because she had to work. It broke my heart. I want to ask my mom how she coped with this teenager-turning-adult transition? How do I let go of all the group activities and routines that I have carefully nurtured for 19 years now? It's not going to be easy!

For now, I am grateful to get what time I can with my family. This summer we have had wonderful moments of family barbecues, playing with the new watercraft, birthday parties and other backyard get togethers... but there haven't been nearly enough for my liking because we are also busy working our separate jobs, going our separate ways....

Slow down, Life...  Give me more time to treasure these precious days with my family.

Breaking in the new Waverunners:

Our Summer Garden:

 The screens, antique gardening tools and antique ladder all belonged to my beloved grandparents who also loved gardening.

Oh, Hi! What have YOU been up to?

The doctor's exact words were, "You've definitely been concussed. We need to get a scan of your brain and we should probably x-ray that elbow too."   If I hadn't been feeling like crap, I'm sure I could have come up with something witty to say...  but the problem is that my wits seem to have taken an extended vacation. As in, I live in a dense fog these days where thinking is nearly impossible and my family members give me funny looks that seem to say, "Oh that poor woman. It's sad that she sounds so crazy."

Two days ago, while doing my normal household chores, I slipped on a video game case and took a tumble down some stairs, whacking the back of my head so hard that I forgot some fairly important things. (Where I work, for example.) As the day went on, my symptoms got worse and worse.. until I was feeling so horrible that I wanted to find a nice doctor to make me feel better. I wasn't asking for much.. I didn't expect anyone to make me feel great, or to erase the angry, purple and black bruise from my elbow (Hubby says it looks like I hit a train with my elbow) .. I was just desperate for the pressure in my head to ease up, for the nausea to subside, and for the freakin fog to lift from my muddled thoughts. No such luck though. All the doctor could do was reassure us that there was no bleeding in my noggin and then slap us with the news that this could take 6 weeks to recover from. Seriously??

Yesterday was beyond rough.  Severe pain, dizziness, nausea, and very confused thoughts. Tears of frustration were constant, but throughout it all, my sweet family took such loving care of me.  I'm a lucky girl.  Hubby timed and brought me my meds and he even drilled a hole in my water bottle cap so that a straw would fit just right, making it easier to sip from bed - Madi and Emily went out and bought dinner which Madi later cooked and cleaned up after - Carley, Linzie and Abby checked on me frequently, attending to my every need. So if you have to have a concussion, my house is a pretty good place to spend your recovery time.. just sayin'!

The trick now is to "ride it out" without getting overly frustrated. There's so much I want to be doing... spending time with my family and gardening, of course, is right up there at the top. But I can't be up and about quite yet because of the dizziness. Interestingly, I can't watch television either. My eyes won't track the images on the screen and my brain has difficulty interpreting what is going on.  They tell me that the recovery period is 6 weeks...  SIX WEEKS! Yikes.

I'm so grateful to my family for taking such good care of me. I'm lucky to be surrounded by loving girls and my Hubby (who can be a butthead at times, but really comes through when I need him!).  Now I just need my noggin-jello to heal so that I can feel normal again.  Normal?  What's that??