The View From Here

This post has been taking shape in my heart over the last several weeks but I had a feeling all along that it would culminate today.  Why, you ask?  Because the thing I hear most loudly at this moment is a peaceful, yet unsettling silence.  I am alone in my house, and up until now, this has been a rare occurrence.  Fair warning to my readers, this post is determined to be transparent and I'm unable to keep it from being so.

I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about our view of life.  What do we see in our everyday lives?  What images do we take mental pictures of yet never stop to fully appreciate their impact on our ordinary day-to-day existence.  Our lives change and grow over time and what we did and where we went Sunday through Saturday 20 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 3 years ago, or one month ago might be completely different than what we do and where we go now.  I realized recently that since we have now lived in our current house almost nine years I have lived in this home longer than I have lived anywhere else.  Growing up, I didn't live in any house longer than six years and then I left for college, lived in Tulsa after college, married Lindy and we moved three times in the first six years of marriage.  We have lived in our now-yellow-previously white house for almost nine years.  I have worked in the same office for almost 15 years so you could say I've come to experience some real stability in my life.  But do I take time to appreciate the view?  I started capturing a few images, both mentally and photographically, to share in this post.

This is the view outside my garden window in my bathroom when it's 6:30 in the morning in mid-August.  This view changes throughout the year, but this is my view first thing in the morning.

This is the view outside the same window about 45 minutes after the first one.

Here is my view on my drive to our Washington office at around 7:30 in the morning.  I drive the back roads through Missouri wine country to get there.  Isn't it beautiful?  My drive to work at my main office isn't near as breathtaking.  I took my life in my hands to capture this shot while driving.  You're welcome.

This is the view from my hammock on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  Definitely one of my favorite views.

This is the wonderful view that my husband envisioned and created in our backyard.  I get to see it from this vantage point a lot more often now that I actually go into the yard to take the dog outside.  That's a story for another day.

This is a different perspective on the same view.  My husband is the one with the green thumb and an
eye for the beautiful.

This is my view from our patio table overlooking the backyard.  I take in this view quite often as this is our favorite place to sit to when the weather is the least big cooperative.

This is the nighttime view looking in our back door.  I love this view most when I can see my family inside just doing what they do, being content and at peace in our haven of calm and safety.

This is my view of my oldest and youngest as  they warm my heart with their closeness.

This was my view of Gavin as I left him in his kindergarten classroom on the first day of school yesterday.  He's the one in the red shirt facing the door.

This is my view of my middle and youngest as Ethan gently guided Gavin on to the
school bus for the first time this morning.  He did this without being told and my boys warmed my heart once again.

This was my last view of Gavin as he waved to me through the Emergency Exit window this morning.

So, this post has brought me to today and my view from here.  I sent my littlest one off to school yesterday and today is the first day (as I am off on Thursdays) of spending a full day without children after 12 years.  It's been almost exactly 12 years because I went back to work four days a week at the end of August the year Jac was born.  You may read this post and only see the comparative insignificance to other events in our lives that require much more thought and insight.  But for me, I'm allowing myself a little latitude in acknowledging this event.  If you're my friend in real-life or a months-long reader of my blog then you know that I experienced a miscarriage back in April.  So this event holds extra significance as there isn't another baby coming to take Gavin's place in November as I send him off into the world of adventure that awaits him.  If you weren't aware of this, I wrote about it back in April but not since then.  

So, again, what is my view from here?  Well, having worked in hospice nearly all of my nursing career I have come to appreciate the value of perspective in our lives.  It is important to capture and appreciate the views that we see every day and possibly take for granted, but it's even more important to have a different view, or perspective when we look back over our lives.  For me, I feel like there is a new chapter opening itself up up in my life.  I don't know what it is but I believe it has something to do with writing.  More than anything, I want to encourage and uplift others, especially women, to be all that God wants them to be.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made, there is not one of us who was ever an accident, and we live way below the potential that God wants to reveal in our lives.  I don't know what it to come, but I my view from here is focusing on the wonderful things I'm anticipating and accepting the loss I experienced as just part of the view that shapes who God wants me to be.

Yesterday marked one year of writing my blog, and about 3-4 weeks after I started it I added a counter so that I could monitor the hits.  As of the writing of this post my blog has had 5995 hits in the last twelve months minus 3-4 weeks.  I was hoping to hit 6000 but 5995 is pretty close.  I know my writing is kind of all over the place, but I enjoy writing about what I'm feeling or experiencing or viewing at the moment.  I hope you enjoy reading it.  I get quite a number of hits but not many comments, but I plan to continue regardless.  Thanks to everyone in my real life who is so supportive and encouraging, and to my husband who tries not to give me a hard time when I have to sit down for three hours and type.  Sometimes it just has to come out when it wants to come out.

Love to all.