A Jumble of Thoughts

This has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost a week, so it's time to finish and post it...before it becomes totally irrelevant and untimely. These were my musings shortly before I left Alaska to come home.

----

As I was catching up on reading some dear friends’ blogs this evening, it struck me that I have been relatively quiet this summer with regard to sharing how I am doing. Sure, I have posted updates and recorded milestones as they passed, but I need to take a moment for myself and just reflect.

Not that I have really had the time to think or process much, because life with three kids has pretty much consumed my waking (and wish-I-were-sleeping) moments. I am SO grateful to have a loving, fun, supportive family here who have helped with the juggling act all summer. I loved having the chance to get out on the water and help with the fishing every once and a while. (I look awesome, I know. There IS a life jacket under my rain coat, and the glasses are to help keep the jellyfish out of my eyes!)

Here are some of the thoughts that have been bumbling around through my head this summer:

-Grief has a sneaky way of popping up when you least expect it. It has been two years since we slowly said goodbye to my dad, and I have become used to the fact that he isn’t around when we’re at home or my mom’s house. I never expected it to slap me up the side of the head when I was here in Alaska. But as I sorted my feelings out, it makes perfect sense that this season and place would be difficult: My dad loved it here at our fishing site. He and my mom visited twice (in 2005 and 2007), and in his final summer (2010), he pretty much demanded that I go on about my life as usual, rather than staying back in Colorado to be with him and the family as his health declined. He told me he wanted to live the Alaksa lifestyle vicariously through me, and requested that I share our experiences with him via photo CD and conversations on the satellite phone that summer. 2011 provided the distraction of my trip to Denali, a visit from my sister and future brother-in-law, and the exciting news of our pregnancy with our third child. This summer didn’t hold all of those exciting things. The memories of long waits and short conversations with the satellite phone, the constant worry of whether I would make it back in time, and my desire to document and share our life via photos for Pop came back…and I just felt empty at times. I have heard somewhere that the first holiday, milestone, etc. without a loved one is hard in its own right, but that the subsequent ones can be just as hard because it starts sinking in that this is the new reality. I would have to agree.

-Everything changes. Some are good. Some are bad. Some simply are. The abandoned, run-down cannery just down the beach from us is a constant reminder of that fact. 

As we were walking back from the cannery with the the girls and Merrick, I was struck by the fact that the memories we make with the kids this summer will be totally different than future summers simply due to the fact that they are growing and changing. With that realization, I took just a few more photos and clung to some of the precious moments a little more tightly. 

Things like picking salmonberries with the girls, 

watching jumpers (fish that jump out of the water) with Kaylee, 

going on boat rides, 

 and watching the kids play together.

-I love the quiet serenity there is to be found here (once the kids are asleep). As I type this, a yellow moon has risen over the green mountains, and is being reflected in the calm waters of the bay.

I am already getting a little anxious about the sensory overload that awaits me when I get back home. I revel in being without a car, not having to shop, I’m fine without TV, and I can handle the limited internet and phone access (skype via satellite internet). I’m not sure I’m ready for it all, to be honest. But I guess I'm going to have to jump in with both feet...so here goes!