Hard Things...

Vanderbilt Mansion, March 2020

It's getting hard around here. That gut wrenching, life has to move forward, he's got to go back to Indiana hard. For almost two months, time has felt limitless and I've stumbled around not knowing or caring too much about what day it was. Now there's a date on the calendar and I am hyper aware of every minute that's passing. 

Having our kiddo home for this quarantine has been such a blessing, a shiny silver lining in the middle of the mayhem. I was dreading missing summer with him but I know I've been given something far greater than a period of time between two calendar dates because this time has been different. We've had concentrated time as a family that we wouldn't have had with everyone running the 100 different ways our old lives demanded. This time has been good morning hugs, hot chocolate late nights, serious dinner conversations, ice cream runs, and sunny drives to nowhere. It’s been new music, old favorites, after dinner concerts, and dancing in the kitchen. It’s been game night with us losing to our ruthless teenager time and time again until we finally broke out Wii bowling. We’ve endured fraternity initiation week here, celebrated a birthday here, hidden Easter eggs here, taken college finals here, and nursed the broken heart that comes with saying goodbye to a high school sweetheart all right here.

I’m going to miss this kid something fierce when he leaves in thirteen days and I won’t sugar coat the fact that it might very well be worse than when he left for college. We moved from his childhood home the day after we dropped him off last fall and we started over here without memories of our family in this house. We’ve had a clean slate to create something new and quarantine has allowed us to do so in grand fashion without worrying about watching the clock the way we’ve had to with holiday breaks and a weekend visit. I have a ton of amazing memories now, all of them made right here so it should come as no surprise that my selfish heart already wants more. I know I’ll be counting the days until his next visit home.  #BuehlerLife