No Return to Normal

Easter surprised me this year with it's sudden arrival. Coming close on the heels of my trip to Montana, I was completely unprepared. The winter wreaths were still on the doors when I came home, the Easter baskets buried under layers of gift bags in the storage room. I scrambled to do the minimum of decorating (change wreaths to spring / Easter egg theme) and purchased candy for Rob and the kids.

On Easter morning I got up at 5:15 am to drive Daniel to the youth sunrise service. He and I were tired and grouchy afterward, as I made coffee cake and prepped bacon for brunch. The older kids arrived at 9am, Aden from Boulder and William from bed, where he had only had a few hours of sleep. So much for excited kids searching for the Easter bunny's hidden eggs! No one really likes hard-boiled eggs, so I skipped them.

William and Daniel both fell asleep as we watched the 9am service online, and I jumped up to start the eggs after the sermon. A convenient service, but lacking the emotion of the soaring sopranos and horns that always move me to tears when we are in-person.

After brunch, Aden and I chatted while the boys dispersed to batting cages or bed, and I quickly cleaned up the Easter baskets so the cat wouldn't eat the green plastic "grass." The briefest Easter basket appearance in the history of our family, cut short because we didn't want to kill our cat!

Nothing is the same, do you feel that? Not only because the kids are growing up but because we have all changed, are still changing. My trip to Montana was a giant step toward joy, but not really toward normal. As my sister says, "there is no more normal. We never have any idea what the next day will hold, we just meet it as best we can." True, and disorienting.

Rex, the same cat who would binge on a diet of plastic grass if we let him, escaped last night when Daniel was taking out the trash. Of course we didn't realize it until three hours later, when I noticed his absence from the couch in our TV room, where he always dozes at night. We combed the house, and the boys hit the streets near us, shouting his name and waving flashlights. Daniel found Rex crouched in the bushes of our neighbor two doors down, and chased him back up the street and right through our front door.

The cat was spooked by his adventure, his eyes the size of dessert plates and his fur puffed out to five times it's normal volume. He immediately ran upstairs to hide under our bed, only to emerge some time later to drink as if he hadn't seen water in years.  Which reminded me of me, as I now venture back out into the world of in-person work and travel, letting my boys go back to school five days per week.  My eyes wide and my metaphysical fur on fire, excited for old routines but tearing back into the house later as if I hadn't sought refuge in years.