Living Life in Color

Life passes me by some days and I have no idea I am even in the process. Some days I am floating around in slow motion, with a view-from-above picture as everything happens without you having any input, despite being a key player, because after all, it is your life… This is how many of us live our lives. I try to stay grounded, but there are some things with which I struggle:

My life usually happens in black and white and I grow tired of knowing exactly what will happen next. At times, my life happens in living color, but to the rest of the world, I have to act as though my life is black and white. I act as if my life is under control and normal, operating perfectly inside the lines in which I learned to color when I was five. I take a step back from myself as I am sitting in our make-shift office (AKA the game room—our computer is perched atop our air hockey table and Duane is sweating and bustling over Muro’s room which was going to be the nursery one day). Life is whizzing past me— Muro will be here in two more days. I am numb, the clock ticks, so much to do.

I love my husband. He is my best friend and I admire him as he readies Muro’s room. When we got pregnant, we talked so much about how our lives would change and spoke excitedly about setting up the crib. As the months passed and no childrens’ voices filled these empty hallways in the half of the house we never use—we grew complacent. Tonight marks the end of all that. We will have a child in that room soon.

I see a spark in him tonight, something has come alive. He knows I am in the game room writing and he shut the door to vacuum—he really is tending to every detail of his son’s room, an important step since we have both grown so complacent in the past year. Duane is focused and I am so happy to see him this way. I set aside how I feel and try to realize that he and I are best friends and we have to support each other in the end to make it work.

At the same time, a spark, a fire has caught inside me. I know Muro has gone to his capital city of Tbilisi. OK people, he calls me mum. I have to tell you—I am worried now—he is about to say goodbye to his own parents and after that, he is in our care. He will rely on me to be his mom and I will need to ensure he arrives here in my house in one piece.

Please keep reading to see what happens next.