"When will it get easier?"

Wow. It's been awhile! The past month of life has been crazy, an absolute whirlwind of life and change, parties and celebration, hellos and goodbyes. I've sat down to write a handful of times, never certain of how to start or what to say. Notes and ideas for blog posts abound in my journal, I just haven't been able to get anything out. I think that's okay. It's a lot to process. I think I am ready to start writing again, at least for tonight.

I spent the majority of yesterday in Milwaukee with my sister, brother-in-law, and sweet new nephew Dane. Have you met Dane yet? Allow me to introduce you.

He's adorable, I know. Don't let the sweet sleeping picture fool you. He is adorable, I'm not denying that. But he can be, according to my brother-in-law, a crying fuss bucket. I spent the majority of yesterday with my little Danish, and he spent a lot of that time screaming. Hungry? Cold? Tired? Cranky? Sleepy? We're not too sure. It was a guessing game to figure out what he needed and how we could give it to him. 

At some point during the day, my sister asked in defeat and desperation, "When will it get easier?" Honest. Tired. Real. She was unfiltered and uninhibited, exhausted and straightforward. 

When will it get easier? When will it feel real? When will it stop? Go? Move? When will I understand it? When will I feel like I have a handle on it? 

You could be asking these questions about parenting, about changing jobs, about graduating college, about saying hello and saying goodbye, about a thousand things in life. 

As I move through a particularly tumultuous and uncertain season of life, I am starting to realize that it may never get easier. I may never fully understand the roles and spaces that I enter into. I may not ever have a handle on the fact that life, whether in this season or another, is uncertain and uncanny and unknown. Life is not static and just as I figure out one thing, another thing gives way. Life doesn't stop and doesn't give us answers. 

Luckily for Katie, I think it will get easier. I think as the days and weeks pass, she will get into a rhythm with Dane. They will learn one another; she will learn his cues and he will learn how to communicate his needs more effectively. He will learn to sleep, and it will get easier as she and Mark become more rested. I do think that as some things get easier, others will become more difficult. As Dane grows, Katie and Mark will become comfortable but will still daily face the unknown paths of parenting. 

I want to make friends with the idea that this whole thing called life might not ever get easier. Maybe that's the wrong question for me to even be asking. Regardless, I want to make friends with the idea that I'll always be facing the unknown and I won't always understand it or be able to solve it or fix it.

For tonight, I am okay with that. There's a great sense of peace that comes with not knowing and being okay with not knowing. It's a type of free-fall, to know that I don't have all the answers, but I'm not supposed to have all the answers. To know that this season is not easy, but it might not ever feel easy. For now, I am okay with that.