What It Feels Like

If you have read my last four posts, you'll know I have taken on the small (yet challenging) project of relating what it is like here through our five senses. It was Lydia's idea. I'm sure she didn't know how cathartic this would be. Especially this one: the sense of touch. Forgive me, dear blog-reader, but I'm going to have to go a bit metaphorical here.

What does it feel like here, to live here? I fear I may not be skilled enough to detect it, explain it and make it interesting. Who could? Marilyn Robinson? In a way that would have you weeping and rejoicing over what seemed like just words. Ann Voskamp? Emphatically poetic and raw and without proper punctuation. The Pioneer Woman? With step-by-step pictures and self-deprecation and Rotel-void desperation.

I am none of these women. So, here in a completion of my daughter's challenge, I'll tell you how it feels here. How I feel. 

I feel like I am part of something (a people, a country, a community) but never really fitting in.

I feel proud to be where I'm from, patriotic even. I also feel ashamed of my country, the (usually right) stereotypes and things we take for granted.

I feel despair and I feel hope. For my friends, for this country and for myself.

I feel lonely and isolated.

I feel loved.

I feel frustrated and impatient. I feel entitled.

I feel busy and purposeful, but also caught in a cycle sometimes. Overwhelmed and sometimes under-whelmed.

I feel normal. Like a normal house-wife, an ordinary mom.

I feel everything is different and to explain the difference is exhausting and difficult.

I feel grace working in me and through me. I feel God's assurance and peace and power all right here.