Here....

I currently have 3 blog posts sitting as drafts in my work space, and tonight I finally figured out why.

My word for this year is forward.  I've been praying over it and striving to live it out as I stretch myself and do things I didn't think I could. Only lately, God is trying to make the move forward really clear for me...but I've been holding on to here.

Here is a place I know.  There's comfort in that, even though here is not necessarily a place I'm really enjoying in life.

Here is midlife, and all of the lovely changes in my body and attitude that brings, sometimes on an hourly basis.

Here is looking toward the end of my career and wondering if I've done all I could and what's still left to accomplish in the next ten years.

Here is contemplating an empty nest soon, and some days very eager for it to arrive, while others I sit in the bathroom and sob because I'm done raising little boys and I miss their hugs and their dirty faces that I got to scrub in the bathtub a lifetime ago.

Here is facing down another knee surgery next month because arthritis has taken all it can from me and I have no more left to give.

Here is contemplating many decisions made in my early 20's that are not really what I anticipated they'd be in my late 40's and wondering if this is all there is...and if it isn't, what can and should I do about that.

Here isn't really paradise, but it's not hell either, and I've been sitting here for a while now.

Waiting.
Wanting.
Wondering.
Waffling.

Those drafts of blog posts are symbolic of my life right now.  They're sitting here, too, every bit as disorganized and unfinished as the woman who penned them.  They're not ready to be seen.  They're raw and emotional and hard to digest. Just like the woman who penned them. In fact, I'm really tempted to just delete them.  Maybe that's the forward move - to let them go - let go of here and move my attention to there instead. To forward.

Some days, I'm just not ready for forward.

I wish it wasn't beckoning me.

But it is.