Celebrating the Ordinary: Too many feelings....

You hear the phrase bittersweet when it comes to our emotions all the time.

Emotions and feelings are so stinking complex. There are so many feelings that I feel and I don't have a word for them and I can't even describe them. So my go to emotion is to cry and I have no problem with crying. I am a weeper as Jude Law so eloquently puts it in "The Holiday." I mean if the English language wasn't so flawed and I had more words that I could use maybe bittersweet wouldn't be the only way to describe how I'm feeling right now.

As a mother we love so fiercely and so deep. I carried my babies for 9 months and I have been a stay at home mom for 23 years.

My life for good and for bad are my children. I knew this was a risk and it has weighed heavy on my mind for a long time. I knew my kids were growing up and I would be left wondering who is this person... What part of Hilary is left at the end of this?

I'm a different person than when I started this motherhood journey. I have changed so much that I stare at the person in the mirror and wonder, "Who are you?" I never meant for that to happen but day after day and month after month and year after year it has been a bit of a ground hog day of meals, kids arguing, bath times and bedtimes, stories, homework, talking to teachers, classrooms, constant cleaning and never ending laundry, and a million other of who knows what interspersed with all the hugs, loves, squishes and tickles. The smiles and cuddles on your lap with their little head on my chest....oh the love.

So I am a really scheduled person and it helps me immensely. I have always had breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same time and don't even get me started on bedtime. I am for sure a bedtime Nazi. Am I allowed to say that? It's true though. Well rested kids are happy kids and I have always taken bedtime very very seriously. But through this all my purpose and focus has been solely on the children. I have been blessed with a devoted and loving husband so I have always taken care of myself also....mostly. Well sorta kinda. I mean when all the kids were younger not so much but I'm better at it now. I am home with them 99% of the time but I give myself permission to read and to run everyday and do things that make me happy. But I am genuinely happy with them and I am a complete and utter homebody in every sense of the word...which I think helps.

Also me and my honey have always put our relationship first which I am so incredibly grateful for fully knowing that at the end of all this, god willing, it will be just him and me.

Ok why am i writing all this? I don't know it just sorta went there but the point is well there is no point.

But what I sat down to say is I feel the most bitter sweet I have ever felt. My kids are seriously growing up and I'm not sure how to process it all....for reals. I do know that I thought I would feel bitter sweet when my Nicholas got married but all I felt was sweet. I love Natali so much and she is such a part of this family and there was just absolutely no bitter. I guess there was that part of me that couldn't believe my son was getting married and the emotions that went with that but it wasn't bitter....again no words in the english language....sad? maybe just because I don't like change. But I have no words.

But right now I feel 100% bitter and 100% sweet.

How can I feel such polar opposite emotions.

I will tell you and start with the bitter because I said good bye to my precious Benjamin 3 weeks ago and I am not going to see that incredible boy for 2 years

2 years!!!!!!!!!!!!

How can I even comprehend that?

It's soooo bitter.

I am raw.

I am sick.

Everything hurts.

My heart aches.

I'm a little lost

and there is such an emptiness.

I want my Ben. I want to see his smile and hear his laugh. I want to hear about his day and what he did with his friends. I want to hear him playing with Ella and Charlie. I want him to go to the kitchen and grab a handful of nuts and tell me that I don't buy good food. I want to hear him say "Hi Mommy." I mean he still calls me mommy...are you kidding me? How am I supposed to not cry every time I hear that?

Or when I'm mad hear him say, "Does someone need a hug." I even secretly want to tell him to clean up his room or do his homework or tell him to stop teasing his siblings.

It hurts so much.

I love my Benjamin so much.

Just sooooo freaking much. I always have. That baby that I could not get on this planet no matter how hard I prayed and no matter how hard I tried and then 4 years after Nicholas that boy came to me.

Pure Joy.

That is what he was and is....pure joy.

That pudgy perfect happy baby

that pudgy perfect happy toddler.

that pudgy perfect happy school boy.

I'm not kidding this is my Ben.

I am not exaggerating.

Then my not so pudgy, perfect, happy and beautiful teen.

The teen years were our hardest but we navigated them and my beautiful boy decided to go on a 2 year mission for our church. He decided on his own to give up 2 years of his life to teach others about Christ.

2 Years!!!!!!

He put schooling on hold, got a job fixing concrete no less, and earned over 4 thousand dollars to help pay. He is leaving everything that is comfortable and safe and go to

Panama City, Panama and spread love and hope.

I am speechless...I again have no words.

Here is the sweet.

My "19" year old boy.

He is a baby himself and yet has the wisdom and long term vision to do something that few adults would have the courage to do.

So I just cry.

How could I not?

Half the time they are happy and complete proud, grateful and complete joy tears and half the time they are the saddest missing tears you could possible have.

Yep....Bittersweet.