Get Used To Different

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Alisha

Contributor at Our Paradoxology

Wife of Rod. Mother of Josiah, Selah, Jeremiah, Tallulah, and Eli. Loved by God. Alisha spends her time homeschooling her children, battling technology, and doing laundry.

Latest posts by Alisha (see all)

• After 12 Days of Christmas: Epiphany! - January 7, 2024
• Grace enough for this mom, too. - November 1, 2023
• Airing our Dirty Laundry - September 20, 2023

It has been over a month since my last post and a quick scroll down the homepage would say it is my “turn”. But words are coming hard for me. Everything is. Life just feels hard right now, but it is difficult for me to explain just how or why, beyond anecdotal examples of the small daily frustrations I encounter here and there. I think it is because everything is different. Not all bad. Not all good. But very different.

As a homeschooling mother, my main job right now is to re-establish the routine of the homeplace: basically doing the same things I’ve always done in a new place. But it is hard to do the same thing when everything is different. Knocked out of my rhythm, I feel a bit off-balance and even small daily tasks require too much attention and decision. Right now I struggle to think of a single thing I do each day that is the same as it has always been. EVERYTHING is different.

The sounds are different: different birds, different bugs…bigger. Different words and voices and songs.

The smells are different. I hear the rain and open the windows: but can’t find the smell I always knew. A smell I fail to even remember well enough to describe: help me friends…was it grass? soil? With something sweet? I don’t really know how to describe it here either, just different.

The flavors are different. We might find butter, chocolate, avocados: but in your mouth they aren’t familiar. There is a subtle nuance in flavors such that basic comfort foods fail to deliver. I am working to adapt to new staple ingredients, but new ingredients mean new recipes, new utensils, new pans, new methods. For some that might sound fun. For this cook and grocery shopper, I admit it is mostly daunting. Probably because the food is different, my body feels different, too. It is exhausting to have no respite from all that is unfamiliar, even inside myself.

I sit here at my desk a stack of papers and notes next to me. It is printer paper, but a different shape (My PDFs run off the page on the long side and also leave a huge margin on one side along the short side…an annoyance to this recovering perfectionist and her like-minded children doing school on lopsided worksheets). Also, the pens have smaller ballpoints, so my handwriting looks a bit like someone else’s. That is supposed to mean something. Am even I so very different?

I brought the most important pieces of the life we left behind with me: they are different, too. Rod has more confidence and purpose than I have ever seen in him and that changes my role in his life. We moved here with three “littles” and one very tall eighth grader. Now I am the mother of mostly high school and middle schoolers. Even our youngest will be hitting double-digits this month. All these new life phases are bombarding me each day without my permission. So much that is so different.

The kids and I are working on putting together our own synoptic gospel as we study all four gospels together during our school day. As a part of that process we are re-watching The Chosen. If you’ve been following with this amazing show, you might recognize the bumper sticker phrases #LookUp or #ComeAndSee. During Season One, it was #GetUsedToDifferent. That is the part of the story we are in right now. And so I am. We are. We are all getting used to different.

I fear my tone is–once again–desolate, sad, even whiney. That isn’t how I feel.

Sometimes a fog sits heavy around me, yes. Sometimes I feel I’m just spinning my wheels trying to do the same things I’ve always done (cooking, cleaning, and working to develop and find meaningful outlets for my children’s amazingness)…even though that same thing I’ve always done is different here, harder.

Still we plug away and find new blessings when we look for them. I’m certainly not doing it perfectly, but God loves me anyway. When I can see clearly, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

God is too good,

his world too wonderful,

his work too astounding

to stay in the fog when the sun is shining.

Here are a few things that have me feeling blessed beyond measure recently:

#1) Have you ever heard a seashell orchestra in real life? The way the waves catch the shells and then send them clinking together on the way back out is such a uniquely beautiful sound. I’d never heard it before, and it took my breath away. The whole earth sings praise. (The video doesn’t do it justice, but we tried…)

#2) Baht are PERFECT for illustrating borrowing. Such a fun blessing as we wrapped up 3rd grade math and reviewed all the sticking points!

#3) I caught these two spending quality time making music together. I was able to sneak the phone around the corner just in time to catch this. They are both shy to share these talents, but I pray they do this together more and more!

#4) Isn’t this symbiosis of life so pretty?

#5) These two American girls brought up the rear in the three legged sack race.