Here and now.

We are slowly getting the hang of living here. The coffee store now knows our "usual." We saw people we knew at the garage sales we went to this morning. The neighbors wave to us. Slowly but surely we are finding our niche.

I thought it would take longer but it has gone pretty smoothly all in all. The house has some order to it. The car got the oil leak fixed. We have been to Portland enough to know the streets to get where we need to go and more importantly to get home.

Get Home. Two little words that encompass so much. I like it. I like it here. Some things are harder than I thought but some things are so much easier. I really thought I would miss the big city more than I do. I still grumble and moan about what I don't have, what I can't find but it passes quicker. I still have hard stuff ahead of me but in a small town it is simpler. People are kind. I'm sure they are kind everywhere, but in a big city you don't get so much of it. Here you get it all the time. They remember us at restaurants and gas stations and the hardware store.

A new life unfolds and starts to take place. It becomes ordinary. It starts to become a comfortable routine. I think it is like a wound. At first, because it is new, it is painful and noticeable. You feel sadness, anger, fear. You believe it will never go away. That you will always have a gaping wound that everyone stares at. Eventually, it starts to heal, to scab, to become less noticeable, the pain lessens. A scar takes the place. The healing is a process, a long process. In the end, the scar remains. It remains to remind us that we went through something and came out the other side. Maybe not as intact as we would have liked, but intact enough to feel contentment that we survived, that we are strong, that we are happy and at peace.

This is how I am starting to feel. Some days are hard and some are easy. I still want to scream and cry about the unfairness of it all, so I do. Some days I want to laugh and do nothing all day, so I do. And some days, I plan a future. My future. A future staring me! A future I hope holds more good things than bad. Even if it doesn't, because who among us really knows the future, the here and now is pretty darn good.