Norman Rockwell or abstract paint spatters?

I was talking with my husband on the phone this morning. He’s working out of town and I haven’t seen him for almost three weeks. He’s worked on the road for the past 16 years. I miss him.

I am currently in the midwest helping out my parents who are going through some health issues and I’ve been away from home for over two weeks. I’m so thankful to be here and spend this time with them and they are so thankful to have me here. Things have been kind of crazy the past few years and I haven’t been able to visit them as much as I would have liked.

I’m also missing my son, daughter-in-law and my granddaughter who live on the East Coast. We lived in the same city until about two and a half years ago when they moved to the East Coast and we moved to the West Coast. I babysat my granddaughter for the first year and half of her life and my heart has a huge hole in it. Even though we miss them like crazy we are so excited for them. They are doing so well and we are so happy that they were brave and made the choice to follow their dreams!

My husband was talking about missing his mom who lives about 1000 miles away from us and wondering when we would be able to go out and visit her. The holidays are quickly approaching and family has always been a big part of our lives during the holidays.

Our daughter and son-in-law currently live in the same city as we do but, they’re moving out of state in a few months. We are so excited for them and know that this move is going to be great for them but, we will really miss them.

We would love to feel settled and feel like we are living in the place where we will be for the rest of our lives but, we don’t. We’ve felt it for awhile though. We felt it before we found out that all of our family would be spread out from coast to coast and everywhere in between. It just actually took until the last few months for us to realize it.

We really want our lives to look like the perfect Norman Rockwell painting and actually it looks like someone threw a can of paint at a canvas. But, I’m wondering if there were years of Norman Rockwell’s work that looked a lot like spattered paint.? I wonder if underneath some of those beautiful paintings is a lot of spattered paint?

I’m beginning to see the beauty in the spattered paint though. The idea of everything being beautifully painted on a canvas is just not a reality for any of us.

What my husband and I are realizing is that what we see as messy is really beautiful. Every mess is necessary to complete the painting. I really wish that I knew what the final piece looked like but, I trust that it’s going to be beautiful. It’s not comfortable and we really like comfortable. But, we are choosing to be grateful for each crazy blob of paint.