It’s okay to be sad sometimes.

“Mom, I miss California” Stephanie whispered to me as I came in to kiss her goodnight. It caught me a bit off guard. “I miss it too Steph” we spent the next little while talking about everyone and everything she and I missed. Sharing tears and laughter. Reminiscing and aching for what we had. She confided in me her innermost thoughts and feelings. “It’s just really hard for me to let go..” I stopped her mid sentence. “You don’t have to, I don’t expect you to, nor do I really want you to. I love what we had. I miss it all the time. I think of what could have been. It is ok to be sad and miss all of that, and still be happy and love what we have now.”

I had no idea I would be having these big conversations so regularly with my 8 year old. I had no idea that she’d miss it so much it sometimes becomes all consuming for her. It breaks my heart.

It’s been 17 months since we moved. 17 months since we said goodbye to everything and everyone we knew. 17 months since we ripped our kids from the only home, friends and family they ever knew. And as if that wasn’t bad enough we spent the first 12 of those months moving 7 times. We’ve now lived in our house for 5 months but even in those 5 months we’ve been finishing a lot of construction projects, lots of doctors appointments for my pregnancy, starting a new school, having the baby, having lots of help and visitors because of said baby, baby getting really sick, Matt had back to back surgeries. In this time we’ve also had so much fun and made amazing friends. We are now really trying to settle into our home, trying to recover from prolonged chaos, and trying to establish a “normal” of what we want our life to be like.

In the honest stress of life right now it’s hard not to wish it was next year already and all this chaos could just be over. We recently made a resolve that despite everything that was going on we would find and make joy in our life. I really don’t want to miss these tender moments with our kids because we were so focused on the stuff and the stress. These conversations are the weaving of a beautiful tapestry. They are the foundation of our relationships with our kids. They can talk to us about anything and we can laugh and cry together and we can be their rock so they know its ok to be sad and that it will all be ok.

By the end of our conversation we made a plan to print pictures of our friends, family and moments that are important to her and she can write about each one and put it in a binder. She wants to be able to look at it often. I offered to make a nice photobook with her and have it printed through one of the many online programs, but she wants it handmade. I hesitated a little because I wanted it to last and be stored in the “cloud” to be reprinted if anything were to happen to it. But my heart told me she needed this to be HER thing. SHE wants to make it and write about it. And I needed to let her.

So here’s to continuing to heal (physically, mentally, and emotionally) by making the joy and learning it’s ok to be sad sometimes.