Weepy

It's been a rough day, for whatever reason. Actually, that's a lie. I know the reason and there are actually several good reasons why I'm weepy today.

1) My grandmother {mom's mom} is really struggling still. You may remember that my grandpa passed away in April and she has been up and down but is really super down right now. Bad. That's a whole post in and of itself but let's just say my grandmother has gone away and I really wish she'd come back...

2) My mom's boyfriend is ill. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier last month. Fortunately, it's stage 1 and they are going to be treating it using radiation beads which treat the cancer from the inside. However, just yesterday, they discovered something is going on with his liver. Might be a bile duct blockage, might be cancer. They are doing lots of tests today and we'll know more sometime next week.

3) As you can imagine, my mom is also struggling. She is dealing with my grandmother's up's & down's, still processing her own grief over the loss of her dad, extremely concerned and scared about her boyfriend's well-being, and is working full time. I am beyond worried about her. Sick to my stomach about it, actually.

4) Our 5th wedding anniversary is tomorrow. That is most definitely a happy thing, but it's making me weepy. I spent part of the day looking over our lovely wedding photos and it made me happy but a bit sad, too. I know now that we were so innocent, so "new" in our adulthood. At 22, we had so much yet to endure and learn. In that 5 years, we have met a lot of challenges, and are still, 3 years and some months later, without a child. We have lost two of my grandparents. Seeing their smiling faces in those pictures and knowing I'll never see them again in this life makes my heart ache. My chest was so smooth and scar-free. While I certainly celebrate the love that we share, and the fact that we are more in love now than ever, it is difficult to be here, so in love, and yet without that ultimate expression of our love: a child.

5) Today is CD26. My cycle has been 30/31 days long, which means within the next 5 days, we will know if this month has been a bust or not. This time is always the "witching hour" for me. The make it or break it time of the month. And I feel...nothing. In my heart of hearts, I know this month was not successful and it hurts.

And so, I find myself letting the tears flow today. Maybe I need to. Maybe I need to just allow the emotions to bubble over and stream down my face. I am facing the grim reality that right now, so much of my life is outside of my control. I feel helpless much of the time. I want to just fix everything: my grandma, my mom, my mom's boyfriend, our infertility, and I can't. But I can pray, and I can remain hopeful that everything will be alright in the end, because if it's not alright, it's not the end.

Life is a journey. A roller-coaster. A long and winding road. Life. Is. Hard. If I could go back 5 years and tell my 22 year old self one thing, it would be that. Life is hard. Truly, but it's also such a blessing. And I need to focus on the blessings more and the challenges less. There will always be hardships. Some times there will be more hardships than not, but amidst the hardships, there are blessings. We may have to squint to see them, but they are there. So today, I weep. But tomorrow, I will focus on a very vibrant blessing: my marriage.