Monday

Moooving veeeery sloooowly toooday.

That looks dumb. Tried to type it like I felt like saying it.

Sean and I are both wasted from the weekend, he from too much lifting, pounding, and measurement computing, me from too much sun and doing everything with a precious
20 pound weight (either strapped to my chest, balanced on my hip or laid across my lap).
However, the yard looks great and the upstairs is coming along.

Hopefully after our slow start today we will chug into motion and get back up to speed.
We'll be painting trim nights this week and banging out as much of what remains this weekend as humanly possible.

Yesterday was an emotional day. All sorts of things afoot with Sean's family. Seems like a serious issue with family, and I mean all family - black, white, catholic, Hindu, together, divorced, next door or miles away, is the meeting and not meeting of expectations. Sometimes people don't state and expectation, thus making it virtually impossible for others to meet that expectation. Other times people state an expectation, really thinking it will be met, but no one else cares to meet. Or sometimes something is said, which creates an expectation, but then the expectation isn't met because the person who said it doesn't do it.

Sean and I talked a lot about this, both as observers not invested and as people very invested. Both ways it hurts. And the reality is you can't really do anything about it. Demanding that someone do something to meet an expectation, whether it was one you set, one you interpreted, or one you were led to, feathers end up getting ruffled. And frankly, having to demand or fight for it, well by the time you get it, you realize it wasn't worth it and better to have not gone to the trouble. I think this is one of those immutable laws of nature. And one, that if you are lucky, leads you to the understanding that you have found and created in your partner, husband, wife, whatever, the one person you can rely on.

It's hard because you never stop being daughter, sister, son, brother, etc - you always feel that same pull and forever turn your heart back to that family, but it is the way of life for a new cycle to begin. It overlaps, washing together with the circle of origin like a watercolor, but a new shape forms. If you are lucky it complements the other and the two end up being individual and together at the same time. But, since life isn't a watercolor and people are more than just colors, it hurts.

I learned after Briar was born, Mother Teresa summed up the pain of life quite well:

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt, only more love.

We hurt, we get angry, we regret, but we love. And for all the maddening frustration, hurt feelings and work, I wouldn't trade those shared memories, laughter and support for a loveless alternative. Hopefully we can convince others of the goodness during the tough times.

I just wish I didn't have to raise my head form the blog to return to Monday.