Feeling Empty

It has been way too long since I blogged!  This used to be my outlet.  I LOVED blogging!  I LOVED preserving the memories!  Blogging helped me see the joy in the every day as a stay-at-home mom.  But I think the past two years just got the best of me...pregnancy, morning sickness, searching for a new home, packing and moving (while pregnant I might add), my first cesarean birth, post-partum blues that lasted way too long the third time around, a baby that literally woke every 30-45 minutes for months and homeschooling in the midst of it all!

I am definitely in a much better place than I was a year ago, but I'm still feeling empty.  I really think I thought that "bigger" house would make me happier.  Instead, I am missing everything about our first home.  I miss the quaintness.  That old house had our personality written all over it.  I miss the memories that we made there.  I miss the backyard where I could watch my children play outside while I cooked dinner in the kitchen.  I miss that we were all crammed together in a tight space.  I miss my kitchen, boy do I miss my kitchen!  I miss that my girls could SEE their daddy pull up in the driveway in the evenings instead of HEAR the garage door open.  They loved running to greet their daddy at the front door or even on the driveway.  I miss our wonderful neighbors from all walks of life.  I miss our church home.  I miss piling both girls into the car in the rain because we didn't have a garage!  I miss the tall oak trees.  I miss watching my girls gather acorns every fall.  I miss the 5 minute commute to Chick-fil-A, Target and the grocery store.  I miss our weekly outings to CBS.  I miss being only 20 minutes from the zoo and only 15 minutes from Fernbank.  I miss my husband's relatively short commute.  I miss that smaller mortgage payment.  I miss living small!

I have questioned many, many times why we chose to move where we moved.  I often wonder if I followed my own selfish desires and wishes or God's direction.

I am beyond thankful for our new homeschooling community.  And I have developed friendships unlike any that I have had since college.  My childhood best friend and college best friends will always be those friends forever!  I truly have no doubt about that, especially when you can pick up right where you left off no matter how long it has been since you last talked.  But then you long for friends in those different seasons of your life.  As a mom, you long for those friendships with other moms who live in the same community and hope that your children will actually get along with their children.  So surely this is God's hand in it all. 

But some days are just harder than others as I experience feelings of regret over the past few years of my life.  I cling to the what ifs of yesterday instead of the joys of tomorrow.  I long to start over and do things differently.  I swore I'd do everything I could to have no regrets with my husband and children, but those regrets are real and they linger.

As I try to decipher God's plan for my life, I know I need to submit everything to Him.  Surely He has a purpose for us here.  And I know that in order to fill that emptiness, I need to seek Him.  But the emptiness is still so real.