Changing Seasons

School starts in 2 weeks. Neither of the kids are particularly excited about that, but they are both eager for the annual school shopping. The backpack we ordered for Ashlyn arrived today. It's not a great one. You know how you can tell kind of just by feeling how papery the material seems? The other day, Eve and I were at Kohl's and we saw some JanSport bags, and I thought how much I always love JanSport backpacks. I had one that made it all the way through high school and well out of college. The only issue was that the front pocket zipper broke - twice. JanSport has - or at least had - free repair for life when you buy a back, but I learned the hard way that it can take 6 weeks to get a broken zipper replaced. Then said zipper can break again within a few month, so probably not worth the hassle. Regardless, I definitely got my money's worth on that bag. But it was actually pretty ugly. Anyway. I'm not here to talk about back packs. I'm here to talk about life change because who isn't down for that kind of conversation at 8:40pm, after the sleeping meds have been ingested and before Jane the Virgin finale has been watched. I was thinking today how different things are now than I thought they might be 5 years ago. 5 years was still when we were in Huntsville. It's funny how there are things that I complained about when we lived there that I would kill for now. (Not literally. I'm pro-life.) There were relationships I had that had more strain in them than I wanted. What I wouldn't give to have some of those people a short drive away. I'm very different, too, though. Five years ago, I was signing my kids up for school for the first time. Eve was entering 8th grade; Ashlyn - 2nd. Brian was starting his full-day schooling adventure (ha!) in kindergarten. The year was about the best I could have possibly anticipated... well, for the girls. Brian's education experience has been rough, to say the least. 5 years ago, I was a college-educated SAHM who hadn't earned in income for years. 5 years ago, I was someone who had the energy to not only think about volunteering, but I actually did it quite a lot. 5 years ago, I was someone on a spiritual path with people who were important to me and vital to my faith experience. 5 years ago, I was someone who could sit and write a blog post without stopping ten times to see if I'd met my goal of 15 minutes of journaling. I was also someone who wanted to be accepted by the "cool kids" in various places I went. This is a weird one, I think. I was 35 years old then, and it honestly caught me off guard that there even still were "cool kids." Either way, I'm glad that I don't care so much about that. I realize more and more that my mom was right all along that the cool kids are often then ones that feel insecure themselves. It's weird how that works. I still have 3 minutes to write until I reach my goal. I wish I had something better to say here. I wish I had some profound thing to say about growth and change and what that means. To say something about the good that has come though hardship. But really I just see it for something that is. Not for something that is good or bad, but just is. I'm different than I was five years ago. And I suspect I could write this same thing again in 5 more years. 2 minutes to go. Well, here's one thing that hasn't changed. I have such little internal motivation to keep going. I'm highly tempted to say, "eh. close enough." But today, I'm much more able to do that without feeling like a failure.

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