physics, smoothies, and the Great Re-Sorting
Last week sometime I was getting the kids ready for school and rushed when pulling something out of the fridge. I heard a clinking sound, but continuing to prep lunches. Later I returned to the fridge to find I had accidentally knocked over a smoothie, which was now slowly spilling across the fridge shelf. My first thought in that moment was - so, physics still exists.
When you lose someone at the center of your life, missing them is expected. What I didn’t expect was the way everything would seem to come unhinged. It’s a constant rediscovering of what is solid and real and what is no longer there because B is gone.
It is hard to conceive how a life so vibrant and full, a body so large and whole, a spirit so essential to our being can simply cease. Surely B’s presence was as real as the physics of a thick spilled smoothie. If B is to have completely stopped being, what else is no longer there? The question is nonsensical from a logical brain, but most of life is experiential, and I find myself continually discovering the answer to this question.
So, I have discovered, the liquid of physics is real, but having someone to text your flight delay to is not. The dogs still need coverage when I’m away, but there is no longer a means for me to share memories of our kids as toddlers with another human.
This discovery of what is here and what is not is a continual revelation. Some of what is missing can be reallocated in new directions, such as other people with whom to discuss AAU basketball plans and discovering new partners in learning to manage family finances. Others previous steel-true facts of life are simply no longer possible.
While I am preparing breakfast and shuttling children, taking over car maintenance, I observe my brain taking stock, engaging in The Great Re-Sorting. Some parts of this journey I direct, and with other parts, I feel myself to be a passenger, watching through the window.
My intentional focus remains on loving and raising these fantastic children. I trust my brain is busy sorting out the new rules of the road as we go.
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Have you ever had a Great Re-Sort?
What is your favorite smoothie?