Two weeks out - Sea Glass

The experience of watching my father die has been transformative. I was sucked into a powerful rock tumbler of events that tossed and twisted me against the sandpaper of hope, fear and unmet needs. I started out a shard of glass with crisp, precise edges that fit snuggly and expertly into the jigsaw puzzle of my everyday. Now suddenly polished and smoother, I seek a new fit, a new normal.

I long for normal. I long for nights filled with thoughtless sleep, for days of lunching, grocery shopping and meeting everyday needs. I long for my precise edges. I long for lightness and hilarity and delight.

While some of those will return and hopefully soon, there are things that must become a new normal. I will always be aware of the stories that people carry unacknowledged and unheard. The bank teller who asked "are you having a good day?" just a few short hours after I walked out of a hospice room having just watched my father take his last shallow breath. The people that I passed at Cracker Barrel who could not know what I had experienced that morning. How many times had I walked past someone whose heart was broken in their chest and had no idea?

So now I am a heat seeking missile looking for a sense of normal, a new everyday. And not knowing exactly where or what it is makes me uncomfortable and restless.

I miss my edges.