“Things are always in transition. Nothing ever sums itself up the way we dream about.” – Pema Chodron

I received an email last night from Seattle Public Schools. They aren’t going to be able to make the promised return date for in-person school for Kindergartners and 1st graders of March 1st. I have many reactions to that like “What, it’s been a year? How could that not be enough time?” but I also understand the huge number of details they need to work out. Whether or not I rationalize it, I still feel disappointed and in suspense. We’ve been packed in this house together for a year, doing the best to learn something including how to socialize with others and be happy about the circumstance and I’m ready for a change.

When I first decided to try invitro-fertilization to have a baby on my own, I went through all the steps and then sat down at my desk on the day that I’d gotten it all done and was prepared to start. I thought “Wow, life is about to change!” The next day my amazing father was killed in a bike accident and I was heartbroken. I thought “Not like that! That wasn’t the change I meant!” Even with this ever-present example of the most final way that don’t always change in the way that I anticipate or want, I still am very impatient for change and I’m an optimist that it’ll change for the better. I’m always looking forward to the next milestone or hanging my hat on “what I’ll do when…” It’s like living life in a waiting room, where you are isolated with the old magazines, never quite able to start something because you’re name might be called at any second, not enjoying where you are because it’s on the outside of the room you are waiting to be in.

There’s nothing to do but to return to now. Gratitude does that for me. I breathe into all the many things I’m grateful for including that, even amidst the grief of losing my father, IVF worked and I was blessed with my little family. Even when it feels like I can’t live in these circumstances for a moment longer, I practice returning to the sweetness of what is. It saves me from splitting myself between now and a time that has not yet happened. It saves me the energy of preparing for a future that will likely happen only in my mind. I stray from the moment, I return, it’s a cycle I repeat sometimes with every breath in the day. Life will change, I just try to meet it with my full and present heart.