My kid just finished his first year of his architecture program last week. He has applied for one of the three paths and will know in July if he was accepted… this is after a whole year of learning the trade. He had to create and submit a portfolio after declaring his path. There is no guarantee (even being accepted in the college and the program) he will get in. And yet when talking about his classes and what he did this year he said, “I hope to really practice this summer. I was good, but I know I can be better”. Yeah, cool moment for me as a mom.
I did not know my maternal Grandfather. I have pictures and he looks like a lovely person. He seems engaged while reading or feeding or playing with baby me. But I never knew him. My father in law, ironically, told me more about him than my blood family ever did. From my family, I knew he worked for the telephone company and had a drafting board. Never saw him do either but the drafting board intrigued me from an early age. When my grandmother had to downsize, I asked for it… and proceeded to drag it around for thirty years never setting it up. My mother would ask if I still had it and I would confirm yes and she would shake her head in confusion as she was not overly fond of her father and had no idea why I wanted this thing. Oddly, I find it a tie to both her and him after they have left this earth and could not verbalize to you why.
We have a third bedroom in our house. I painted to be our daughter’s room. Almost nine years ago, I miscarried her. And while the level of pain fluctuates from day to day, it still hurts. It will always hurt. And I avoid that room… though I did put one of my favorite chairs in there thinking it would help. It didn’t.
The other day, an idea hit me… what if I could combine all these feels for good?
So, I did. I cleaned, moved, sorted and changed things around… and in the end I have a little mini studio with my grandfather’s table and a comfy chair with throw and friendly plush dog (moving the chair I like to the main room so I can enjoy it) for my kid to putz, think, explore and have his own work space this summer. And it feels really, really good.
As you can imagine, this post was so hard to write on many sides… but here is my point… we carry puzzle pieces with many sharp and hurty edges and we have no idea why. It would be so much easier to drop them in a recycle bin or burn them in a bonfire…but maybe they do have purpose and we just need to find where they fit. And once they fit… I can tell you there is a sense of peace and of “oh that was why”. Sending you hugs that you find that with your sharp, hurty edges.
kkdonk 