Home for the Holidays

I made it home to Traverse City yesterday and, as always, it feels so good to be here. Traverse City is comfortable for me. It's still "home", even if I haven't technically lived here in 10 years. I still want to move back, and there is always that pull on my heartstrings when I'm back here. Will we ever actually do that? Not sure. It's nice to dream about it though!

I continue to feel better overall, although I also continue to have spotting, and this is the most frustrating part for me. I'm going on 2 and half weeks of this, which I wouldn't mind so much if I could be assured it was 100% normal and didn't indicate an underlying problem. Hopefully, it just means that for whatever reason my body is taking its sweet time in healing from the surgery. I'm holding on to that hope, and continuing to pray each day that it will be the LAST day of the bleeding/spotting. So far, that hasn't happened, but maybe tomorrow will be the day. A girl can hope, right? This has definitely turned into the hardest part of this (besides the no longer having a baby to meet in June part). So those of you out there who believe in prayer (or even if you don't), you might throw one up there that this bleeding would go ahead and cease. Like now. I need it to end! Thanks! :)

I am remarkably less weepy than I was a week ago. I really do feel like, oh, maybe 3 or 4 days ago, I woke up and suddenly didn't feel so BURIED in the grief. It felt like there was a distinct moment when I realized I was no longer totally consumed with myself and my sadness. It's still there and of course I'm still sad, but I also feel more like my old self and even find myself LAUGHING occasionally (if you lived with Phil, you'd find it's hard not to laugh too). If you had told me, during those first few darkest days, that in just a couple of weeks it wouldn't hurt quite so badly and that I might even notice the sun again, I would have probably (sworn at you and) not believed you for one second. But it's true. I can see the good in my life, the blessings, the HOPE for the future. Don't get me wrong, there are still moments where I feel bitter at what was lost and long for, literally YEARN for our baby to still be there, growing inside me. But that possibility is gone and I have accepted that. I'm looking to the future and trusting that 2011 is going to be a better year (it HAS to get better from here, right?) for our family. I believe it will be. I believe some good will come of this, even if I can't see or understand what that good is for a very long time. I will trust that someday I'll understand a little more clearly than I can right now.

I read this last night, and it somehow comforts me:


God has promised that all things work together for good to those who love and serve Him faithfully (Romans 8:28). It may be difficult for us to see and understand how this is accomplished at times, but God has promised it, and He will deliver. 

I'm holding on to that promise...

For now, there is a fire going to my left, with a sleeping dog resting at my feet. My mom is resting in her comfy, new chair as we watch television by the light of the Christmas tree. Tomorrow, my Philip, brother, sister-in-law and aunt will arrive and we'll all be together for the holiday weekend. It's cozy and warm and beautiful and I'm ok. We're all ok.


                                                           Merry almost-Christmas!