I was walking around our backyard tonight at dusk. I looked back at the house and realized how lovely it looked with the winter sky as a background and the lights from the inside, my people living in it and going about their evening. I had just put something in the oven for dinner and and thought about how many people were doing the same thing at the same time.
Then I thought about how so many other people in so many other homes, all across this country, are daily living out their lives and stories from inside a building they call “home”.
Sure, it may not seem like a big deal to some, however to others it may be their everything. Everything they worked so hard to attain, for so many years. The inside contains the majority of their story. They could have lived there since they were a kid, the home passed down from their parents. Or, it could be the home they bought with their sweetheart, containing drawers layered with love notes, paper memories from their children’s school days, and photos, cards, snail mail.
Or maybe it is a brand new place to them and they were adopted by its walls, like a lost child who finally found their family. The soft carpet hugs their feet, the kitchen holds their mother’s dishes, and they sigh a big sigh, waiting for their story to unfold.
All of my homes have been precious to me in some way. The main ones hold amazing memories. The house I grew up in, the house I lived in with life-long friends I met in college, the one I brought my first baby home to, the one I brought my second baby home to, and the one I brought my third baby home to. None of those are the ones I live in now. This latest one is so precious too though, my kids have gone from kids to teens and young adults here and I share it with my love. This abode is where we LIVE.
We cry, we fight, we laugh, we listen. We move around each other in a certain routine and ask questions and try to read each other’s minds at the same time. We ask for the keys or for someone to turn off the light. We get asked “what is for dinner” or “how was your day.”
Every evening when I come home from work I try to remember to be thankful for this house and all it contains, especially the people. Some things here are just “things”, however many of the items contained within these walls have meaning and bring joy to our lives; the art on the walls, the books on the shelves, the favorite pair of boots in our closet.
This month has been a beast, with tiny moments of calm. I am quite ready for January 2025 to be over. But what is next? Does the flip of the calendar page mean things will be better? No. So I keep thinking about everyone in their homes, carrying-on with their lives while things in the world seem uncertain and scary. Because that is what we do, right? We carry on.
And yes, I can have faith, but it waivers.
And yes, I can think that despite my despair, things will work out.
But what do I do in the meantime?
I keep thinking of the very first line from A Tale of Two Cities. You know it. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” We are here.
Right now it kind of feels like someone has broken into our house and tossed everything about, looking for THE thing they desperately want and crave and to take it away from us. And so all the things in OUR house are messy and broken, and we feel violated.
In the aftermath of it all maybe we learn something from the brokenness and we put the pieces back together, make things right and beautiful again, with our good intentions and actionable love of others.
But those times seem really far away right now.
And so I go between taking care of my house and wanting to help take care of everyone else’s house, knowing I cannot ever do the second thing. It is suggested to me to manage only what is in my control, but everything feels out of control.
And so I will sit in my backyard and look into my house and pray. Pray for us all to know and do better, every day. For us to realize the human-ness of every single person walking and breathing on this earth and asking for mercy for us all.
