Suspended in Time
I don't want to write.
I've written that line so many times in my pen and ink journal lately. It's like I get to this point where all I can see is a blur of blended colours and I can't make out any bright points to write about.
It's probably a combination of things. Everyone is on holidays at the moment, so besides my Dad who goes out early for work every morning, no one is following a routine at the moment. Plus I've been eating a few things I shouldn't have lately, and when I have an allergic reaction my brain shuts down--I find myself floating around in a fog.
I feel a lot like that with everything at the moment. We're shifting (moving, that is) this year.
I've got totally mixed feelings about the moving thing. You know, way back at the end of last year I was the one who first started thinking about it, and I was ready to pack up and go anywhere right then. At the beginning of this year when I was so sick, it hit a peak. I had to shift. I was in such fear and everything was so hard because Dr. Price couldn't see me. Mentally I had no hope and I had to escape. My room was my prison, the night my keeper.
April came and the month in Brisbane. When we got home, I was still a total emotional wreck and Mum figured that maybe I could change rooms. Hannah and I swapped with Caleb and Aaron, and it was like we'd shifted. It was beautiful having a new spot, waking up and seeing outside the window and not the bookcase.
Psychologically swapping rooms really rescued me. I also did some serious praying, and slowly I got a peace about maybe staying here for the next three years. I kept asking God to please give me a calm bigger than all my hormonally messed up emotions. He did, and for a time I was in joy.
It was a real shock, then, when suddenly Mum and Dad sat us down at the table one day and said, "We want you all to pray with us about shifting."
The thought was exciting. Up north we'll be able to go to church, I'll be able to get involved in things, go shopping, and there'll be all the special foods that I need available right there.
Then the terror hit and I felt terribly homesick just at the thought of moving. I've always loved living out here in the bush. I was the tomboy when I was younger and I spent years tagging along behind my Dad, first rouseabouting in the shearing sheds and later mustering sheep. Plus I have so many memories here. We've been on this station for over eight years now. This is where I had my first motorbike accident, where I found God, where I turned sixteen.
For I while I felt like I was living on a see-saw. First I wanted to shift only to find out it just wasn't to happen, then right when I finally came to a peace about not moving, I suddenly find out we are. When I finally got readjusted to this new idea, reality hit and I discovered that things won't suddenly be perfect when we shift--it'll just be different. That upset me for a while.
But that was two months ago. A lady has been sending us a few photos everyday of the house we're shifting to and the more shots I see the more I can envision ourselves shifting. Slowly the reality of it has crept up on me and my initial excitement is back. I want to shift. I'm ready to shift.
But of course the see-saw had to tip. I finally get to this point only to find out that we've still got four months to go before we shift. Somehow I had been thinking it was only two, but alas, it's not. Over Christmas I've been tieing up the loose ends of projects I've been working on, and now I find myself at the end of it all.
It feels like I'm suspended between this time of what was and this time of what will be. It's like the night is finally over, but now that the day is here I find myself overcome with the length and brightness of it. The endless possibilites of what will happen this year scare me and I don't know what to do.
I know I shouldn't live waiting for the day we shift, because as my Mum said, "You'll only find that we'll get up there and it won't be that different. We will be the same, our routines will be the same...we'll just be in a different place."
But, you know, sometimes knowing doesn't change anything. I learnt that last year. I found out that knowing the answers doesn't necessarily make you feel them. I am going somewhere, this I know. But right now I'm floating around in a fog--right now I'm suspended in time.
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