.Ordinary Time.

Ordinary days. The year date has passed....I've even gone through my second "first" holiday....and now I feel like I'm back in ordinary time....except, it's still strange.

It would be Chris' 30th birthday this coming Sunday....for him, just another ordinary day, but for me...I'd be organizing the surprise bash of the year for him....and he'd be trying to make me slip up and I wouldn't....because I'd be calling Jill and Amanda and everyone else to keep my mouth shut.

Yep. This ordinarily big surprise would be upon me....but, sadly, it's not. Most people don't understand that these ordinary days are sometimes harder than the bad days because, well, they're just ordinary. People expect you to cry on Christmas and your anniversary and the holidays that creep in on you....but they hope that your ordinary days are the easier ones. This is the thing, my friends, those are the hardest. You're not surrounded by friends or family on the ordinary days...no one is there to hold you while you cry or to watch sappy movies about how the sun will come out tomorrow. The ordinary days are the ones I dread because I get through them on my own most of the time and some days I barely have enough left in me to give to myself....but you muddle your way through it and go to bed in hopes of a better, ordinary, tomorrow.

I will spend the rest of my life trying to manage these ordinary days....and while I have no doubt that someday it certainly will get easier, I have a hard time mustering the patience to wait for that day. I believe that ordinary time prepares you for the holidays, special days, and other days that you've marked on your calendar like normal because it maintains your routine.... but even routine can sometimes set you up for failure. Sometimes you just crave different. Different address. Different job. Different friends. Different landscapes. Different everything.

Sometimes different helps. It's good to make things your own again....and to change the things you are ready to.....but sometimes different just pushes you further into your funk of everything you had together and now have as just you....and sometimes, it helps you feel accomplished, productive, and confident in the baby steps you take in this seemingly ordinary world....and sometimes, without even realizing it--those confident baby steps are leaps and bounds. And, when you least expect it, you find yourself flying through ordinary time with more strength than you ever thought possible and the courage most people spend their whole lives searching for...all because you stopped running from the clock and the days....and you realized the only way to get to the good is to take the bad with it, even on the most ordinary of days.