A thousand days..until what?

A thousand days sounds like a lifetime when you’re newly 15 like my daughter, Perry, or when you’re less than a month from turning 17 like my boys, Brooks and Connor.  When you get to sleep until noon and 20 hours of work feels exhausting and the fact that your unreasonable parents actually give you CHORES in the summer, and you leave baskets of laundry on the steps for four or five days because putting clothes in your drawers is dumb, and when you haven’t actually made your bed in…well maybe ever…and your biggest worry is who “left you on read”, a thousand days feels like FOR.EV.AH…..

But when you’re days away from turning 39 and you have to color your hair every six weeks instead of eight to cover the gray that keeps coming in faster and faster, and you do your best to stay awake until midnight so you can hear the front door lock when your kids barely make curfew, and you have to schedule time for family dinners because your chaotic days barely allow for more than a “hello” or “can you transfer some money to my account”, and when you’re all the sudden the shortest one in the house, and the push-pull between hanging on and letting go can make you swell with pride and break you in half all in one breath; when your conversations with your husband are about rediscovering each other and learning to love each other in a whole new way because all the sudden it’s just you and him; when you look at three beautiful humans that God somehow thought you were worthy to give birth to and you realize that they are what makes your heart keep beating and you’re trying to soak up every single second you have left with them under your roof……..a thousand days feels like a thief standing right around the corner ready to take everything that feels normal and good.

In two years, our boys will graduate high school, and the very next year, Perry will too.  So it’s about a thousand days that is inspiring this blog, and my feeble attempt to slow down the second hand, step back, and soak it in.  Over the next days and weeks, I will introduce you to my family and to my life.  And I will continue to share in the most raw and honest ways I know how.

Enjoy. -H