Today

Today is my middle son's birthday. When your middle child can remember things from a decade ago, it's a sign. (I'm gettin' OLD!) He's such a fine young man, though. I can hardly believe that he grew up in the chaos and shambles of a family life that we've sometimes had in the past decade. But he did. And he is. A fine young man.

Today we went to the Department of Licensing and changed our driver's licenses to reflect our new names. That was done so fast I could hardly believe it, "Tickety-Boo" all done. But then we went to the Social Security Bureau. And they held up some flaming rings for us to jump through. We failed and so we have to go back with some magic incense or maybe a bribe? Is this a dark and corrupt middle eastern country? Remind me? Anyway, I also tried to change the kids' names at their schools. Even our homeschool school needs forty million more steps. Or three, you know. It's not easy.

Today I sent the two oldest boys off to a Youth Conference. Our youth group at my church has pretty much imploded, so the boys attend University Unitarian Church in Seattle. I registered them, paid their fee and added a donation, the eldest drives there every week and on Tuesday nights for OWL. He usually picks up the daughter of a local minister who also needs a home church. Today on the way up I drove, don't want him driving home after no sleep all weekend. And it was kind of the "van of misfits"; you know....like the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph?

(the regular "Island's of Misfits" video did not allow embedding, but this one speaks to me in ways I can't quite explain....just watch!)

I feel like we're saying:

"Hey, here are the kids who don't have a home church because their parent works for a church, and you know...it's kind of hard to make that whole thing work...."

But I think they'll have a great weekend. All three of the youth that were in my van are dedicated Unitarian Universalists. They are committed to the beloved community. And hey, they just want to have fun! They all seemed so amazingly level headed and ready to jump into a difficult situation where they only kind of know what to expect. Well, except the eldest, who could live the rest of his youth at youth cons.....which is just about what he'll do since he turns 18 on Tuesday! He'd be fine walking into a UU Youth rally down south or a youth retreat in Romania. To him, they're all "his people".

All good.

And there we go. Weave it all together and there it is. A life! No doubt. A life. My life.