time

Adapt or die.  Bob and weave.  Roll with the punches.  However you want to say it, the sand is always shifting and we have to keep up or we'll be buried.  In continuing down the merry path to a new life, we've made progress in the way of finding a home to call ours.  Since my tall drink of water did not secure a job close to the place I call home, we've been watching real estate  for a long time, looking for a house closer to his work {since I'm totally going to transition to housewife again}.  It looks like we found one.  That certainly makes things more real.  I'm so excited AND so nervous.  All those maybes are now getting some solid ground under them and that means that real transitions are in view.  Several I'm over the moon about: moving forward with this guy I adore, building a home and family with a partner again, finding a normal with him and my babies, building beauty with all our littles; and several that I'm dreading: moving my littles to a new school, leaving the home I've built by the security of my parents, leaving a job that gives me income to call my own.  I know this is something I want to do, but I'm definitely hating that I'm switching up my children's lives and I know that my parents don't want me to leave.  There is zero denying that I want this though.  No, I don't want to leave the home I've built since the loss of my husband, but I definitively want a partner.  I want this life.  I want to move forward.  I do not want to stand stagnant.  I want my children to witness first hand a loving relationship.  I want a house of laughter that includes a man and a woman.  I want what I felt family would be.  And I'm well aware that I have a family.  My children are enough.  I adore them.  I love this life, but others don't get to determine what I want anymore than I get to tell them what's important to them.  So often when I've felt like someone is judging my decisions, I've paused to look at their life that they have built with their partner and I've thought that they really have no right or perspective to tell me what I should or shouldn't want.  Seriously, while you sit in your cozy house with your husband or wife, you shouldn't look at my, albeit lovely, single-mother home with two kids and a dog life and decide for me that I just need to be happy as I am.  Yes, we should all enjoy the journey at all stages, but the answer is in the statement.  It's a journey.  It's meant to be walked through.  Changes will come.  What's best for you isn't what's best for another and it's their right to choose.  
I lost a friend, it seems.  Making choices, making changes, stepping out... In that, I lost a friend and it's particularly painful because it's a friend I had through Aaron.  Oh the fit I'd like to throw.  That would do no good though.  In one breath I'm saying, "live and let live!," in the next I'm mad because people aren't doing what I've deemed "right."  I told you I'd contradict myself.  What I want to say to all these people that I gained through Aaron?  Show up.  Show the heck up.  You can't be Aaron.  You can continue to show up and represent him to his children.  To me.  I am downright indignant for the lack of showing up.  Make no mistake, Aaron would be livid.  He would be hurt.  He would prioritize his family and protect their feelings from your lack of interest.  He would continue to be there for you though.  He would continue to show up and participate in your life and check on you and root for you and he would be hurt the entire time, but he would not step back from you the way that you have stepped back from us.  What would you like the loved ones in your life to do for you, in your honor, if you were gone too soon?  I wanted these people to show up for Aaron.  Share stories of the man he was.  Stand in the gap some and be strong, faithful, supportive men to our children.  Come to birthday parties and beam at them.  I wanted them to come randomly and show an interest in these lives.  To give hugs.  To listen to them tell about their day.  See, that's who I am as the mom.  That's who I'll always be.  My parents have stood in that gap.  My siblings have stood in that gap.  My church family has stood in that gap.  A smattering of friends of Aaron's (Cory & Brian & Tyler) have stood in that gap.  One-time strangers have come to the table and reached out to my children to provide a man-figure of interest for my children.  And my Chapter Two.  He's stepped in slowly and steadily, recognizing who he is and the position he fills for them, even when it's been scary.  
And kids... they're trying my patience.  I'm human. <3