I walked to the bus stop this morning and felt that suddenly I could breathe again. The last few days have been HOT. Heat indexes in the 100’s and humidity that leaves you dripping and struggling to breathe. But this morning the temperature finally broke a little bit. It’s still hot, but it was raining just a tiny bit and cloudy. It was as if the weather had been holding in stress and emotions until something broke and she softly cried this morning as she released a bit of the tension she’s been holding.

I feel like my mood has mirrored the same transition these last two weeks. I jumped in to summer head first. You would have thought I would have learned from last year’s experience that I cannot be superwoman, at least not for very long. But somehow when all my kids are home, instead of settling into a more relaxed outlook on life, I find myself trying to do everything. I will feed everyone! I will keep the house clean! I will spend quality time with each kid! I can do this!

Maybe it is because I know that summer is hard. I go into it full of energy, pouring myself in because I know that it will take all of me to get through it. This summer has been better than last summer. Last summer, John’s depression was so heavy that I could feel it when I walked into a room where he was. Last summer, my purpose in doing everything was to try to remove some of the burden from him. Last summer, I crashed. All I accomplished was to make myself sick.

So, I know that I need to take it easy. Do only what is reasonable and choose those things that I need to let go of. I need to demand time for myself in each week. I need to find a rhythm. And I will.

But in the midst of this beginning of summer, in the midst of my struggle to find what I can and cannot handle, there was something else just under the surface, something I didn’t even realize was affecting me. As the heat built outside, the same tension built in me until I woke one morning at 4am. It started as a weird uncomfortable dream. One I don’t even remember the details of, but when I woke the emotions and feelings I’d been ignoring were all there, right in the front of my mind as if they had bubbled up from deep within me, finally breaking through to the surface.

It was, unfortunately, not one of the moments when suddenly all the pieces come together and the solution feels obvious. No, on the contrary, I am sitting in the middle of whirling and competing desires, needs, and circumstances and I have no idea how they are all going to fall into place. But it is time that I notice how much those swirling items are affecting me, how much attention they do need. I cannot ignore them, because there are other people in my family that also need to process this stuff and I need to be awake so we can do it together.

This will get really long if I try to explain all the moving parts, but they all have to do with the impending reality of our near future. In less than a year, we will no longer be a seminary family. John will graduate and we will move on to the next step in life. But, for not the first time in life, that next step feels very unclear. There feels like there are so many competing voices in this decision. There’s the desire of the bishop of Arkansas that we should return there. There’s the desire of my husband to not return to AR, based on some very strong practical and emotional reasons. There’s the aching heart of my teenage daughter who has tearfully requested that we stay here and let her finish her high school career with these friends she’s made here. There’s my job that I love, and also my dreams for the future. There’s the whole family’s strong desire to settle down, find a place that we can call home. There’s the uncertainty of the state of our country, an unsettledness that has us constantly discussing the possibility of moving outside these borders. There’s the very real practicality of making sure we generate an income large enough to support our family. As much as we don’t like making our decisions based on money, we do require a base level to survive and a slightly higher level to thrive.

And I’m in the middle of it all. I can see the value in each of the possible directions we head. I can see a place for myself and my dreams in each of them. None of them precludes my hopes for the future. I’m thankful for that. But each of the choices means something different for the mental and emotional health of one or more members of this family. Each choice may affect opportunities for the future for one or more members of this family. And I care about each member of this family. So much that it hurts.

My 4am awakening to the reality of the presence of all this surrounding me didn’t solve anything. But it started a conversation. And that conversation will lead to more conversations. And hopefully eventually a choice will be made. And I hope and pray that whatever that choice is will move us forward to a place of health and peace. I may feel helpless right now, but I do not feel hopeless.