Restarting

We've been broke before, but not broken.  

We had a disastrous winter of 2001 well into summer of 2002, in which we had family die, job loss, a major move, a huge income decrease, and a complete change of lifestyle.  It was hard.  We struggled through a pregnancy with our families and friends far away after we had accepted that children were not in the plan for us. And while our lives had been turned upside down, we weren't broken.  Maybe it was the hubris of youth, maybe it was the ignorance of life, but we never doubted that we would recover.  It took a number of years, but we managed to eventually overcome most of the challenges. Scarred, but not broken.

This particular adventure though, this one has broken us. Our entire lives have burned down around us and only a few precious things are left in the rubble. From every angle, it looks like almost everything is broken and destroyed.  We've choked on the acrid smoke of losing nearly everything we've wanted and worked for. Our lives have been reduced to garbage. I'd love to say its time to rebuild, but its not quite over, like a fire, the hotspots threaten to reignite and consume what is left.

We worry, of course. How can we not? We've been broken with worry, fear, pain and anger. It seems as though every step forward is followed by a step backward. Every success is countered with another failure. And yet we resolve to not just to manage the challenges, but to figure out how to gain purchase in the rubble. When every single step is challenged, its hard to climb out of the ashes and trash.

Its been over a year since we stood in awe at the disaster our lives had become--when we no longer could figure out how to make things better, or which way to go. It was like watching the inferno start with no way to stop it. 

Now we breathe and wait and protect tiny glints of hope. We are learning to accept that our lives are restarting. We are learning that we aren't who we once were.  These are painful lessons to learn. We feel like our age, experiences and former status should mean something, somehow.  They don't. 

So we are restarting. Again.