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(I found this post in my drafts file. I thought it was already published long ago. I find it interesting all that’s happened since I wrote this) My life is again not what I pictured one year ago.

Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

Ha! No.

I’m in one of those life situations that I never saw coming. After most of five months, I still wake up and wonder how I got here.

I can’t think too much about the whys or the hows. This is perfectly the way it all has to be. For now. I hold onto the hope that everything will improve and morph into something wonderful. For today, I need to only be grateful for the moments that get me through the harder things. Remembering to smile and appreciate everything single thing that I can.

This being a fairly typical family happening, aging parents and all, you may wonder how I was sure I wouldn’t be living any of this, personally.

First of all, my parents passed away many long years ago. They seemed old, but weren’t compatibly. In Gs family, he wasn’t the one being groomed for this caretaking role. He had left the area decades before anyone was old. Two of his brothers lived nearby, up until very recently.

A year ago tomorrow, the son of these ailing elderly parents passed. G is the step son. His other bother, also a step, somehow became more and more estranged over the years. So when G came out to help with the late timed and not really planned memorial, he saw firsthand how things were playing out. When he came back, he just said, I have to go help my mom.

And so we packed up, sold everything else, and drove from one coast to the other.

The universe has a way of sending for people and setting up circumstances at just the right time. The step father went downhill immediately. We have since spent most days in and out of some sort of medical drama ever since. If that isn’t enough, we have the most up close seat for all the painstaking elderly moments of Gs mom. Watching her navigate has been a full education. I am thankful for compassion and all the little things that have made this experience manageable.

It’s a lot. There are many things that barely make sense, but it is what is. And I have to accept it all as it unfolds. I’ve learned that for many parts, there are no explanations. I’ve learned that aesthetics aren’t a thing for many people’s lives and if they are, I might not see it. If my eye is offended, Im quite alone. In fact it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland a little. All of it some eventual lesson or lessons I’m learning.

Short answer? Last year, while enjoying the warmth of the season with my family, I only hoped for more good times and more togetherness, really more of the same great stuff. I had a wonderful life that I now miss. I never, in a million years, would have predicted that I’d be looking at a Christmas like this one. Or that I would be struggling to be cheerful in a pretty cheerless situation. Truly, it’s not all bad. Challenging. Interesting. Different.

I’ve had many lovely New England moments. I’ve had plenty of hours to work on my books and plenty of surprising fun with beauty sprinkled in. This is an experience. It’s life unfolding. It’s my life now.