role modeling

it's funny because for the past couple lazy sunday afternoons I've gotten a little sad, or lonely, as the season changes to a chiller fall quickly I am nostalgic for romance and cuddling and such, as the fall season is my favorite and most comfortable to fall into something,

and I think of the series of heartbreaks, some smallish and some largish, that this last year has entailed, and I know I've learned a lot and grown a lot and this and that, but I can't help but wonder what the year 23 will have in store, because I really hope that it looks and feels dramatically different from the year 22. I want something that Olympia doesn't currently have,

but then on Sunday evenings the girls come home, and they come in with big arms and goofy smiles, really happy to see me and to tell me what food they just ate and what game they played with their dad, and we get them a special snack and we put on Street Lights and then You Can't Always Get What You Want and we dance around, laughing,

what is quickly becoming a Sunday evening tradition is important, because as Linz has told me, for kids going through a divorce, transitions are very important, and making the transition from one kind of home into another feel special is a very good thing to do. And isn't this just good to think of in regular life? Making our transitions traditions and making them feel good, in whatever way we can for each other. I am realizing that I am like one of the grownups that was around me when I was a kid, that I loved and looked up to so much and that holds such a specific memory and place in my mind, and this realization of myself being that person for two fabulous little kiddos, this tranistion, in the fall, in a warm little purple house up on the eastside of Olympia, is something that Olympia has never had for me, and if I stop thinking about all the polyheartbreaks this year, I realize I am actually quite happy.