how to get it back

li n me circa 2003

i miss my daughter. there. i said it. we were at the old house cleaning and packing. i was in the laundry room sweeping when i came across the wall where we charted her growth. we started in 2005 and the last marking was almost a year ago. she's already two inches taller. but it hit me -- looking at the pencil marks on the wall -- all that we have lost in so little time.

yeah. i had a melt down and she was the first to hear my cries. she was the first to come and comfort me and ask if i was all right. and it wasn't the same. i try to talk myself into it almost every day. it's not the same. i lost...whew...everything in july. life as i knew it. i hate to keep coming back to this. i want to move forward but leaving vista ridge and going through seven years of "life"...it's hard not to long for things past.

part of it is just me fighting change. but it feels like i'm fighting my nature, who i am. ten years ago, i didn't think twice about being mommy to li. i didn't guard my heart, i laid it out. wore it on my sleeve. it was love at first sight for her and me. and i can't put my finger on when that authenticity left our relationship.

i cried today because i miss the easy, happy love we used to have. it's not there anymore. being apart with no communication for five months with a 14 year old...it's like starting over but knowing what's past. so i'm guarded. i'm not trusting that my heart won't be broken again. to be honest, it breaks a little more every day we spend together never getting beneath the surface stuff.

but there are new rules now. God had a conversation with me about my role in her life and it is not as mom, not like it was anyway. i feel like a poser. of all the things that were lost, this is the one that i miss the most. she was the reason i stayed. God told me the rules had to change. mdh must be the reason i stay and the relationship i must work hardest at.

how do we get it back? only God knows. i just wait for Him to let me know.