Simplicity

January 20, 2008
2:06 AM

It is hard not to long for the days when my life was simple. Funny, I am not sure how simple I really thought life was. I knew it was simple and I don't mean simple as in plain or boring, but as in not complicated. I made it complicated sometimes but it was rather self-fabricated. I was thinking about how our kids interacted and the simple requests by the girls to play with Knox in his room. I am not sure why that particular request by them seemed fun to them, but I guess somehow it seemed like a "big" thing to do. Perhaps this is because it came with admonitions to make sure they kept the door closed (his room was upstairs) and to be careful. I don't know why but this particular thing just seemed simple to me. You know, I knew what they liked to do, what they could do, how to let them do it. Joy was joy and sadness and was sadness and anger was anger. It wasn't too hard to figure anyone out. No one had trouble dwelling on the past or the future for that matter. It was a simple life of living day to day....working, playing, being with each other, loving, fussing, complaining, praising....Now things don't seem so simple. All the things the kids say and do get run through the "their brother died filter." We work hard to keep things the same and, yes, simple, but yet lots of things get that special handling. It is hard to not crave simpler days when you live in days shadowed by sadness and complex feelings. Feeling that can creep on you out of no where. No one knows quite what you are feeling, and you don't know what anyone else is feeling. It gets kind of complicated. I've always like things cut and dry. Do"a" and you get "b." There is no "c." It is hard to think things are simple when everything seems to be changed. You get used to a certain way of life and then it no longer exists, but yet you live on like it does. I don't know; Maybe it is all more simple than I think.