You're Not Bad

Today's good stuff included a house newly clean (with all three of us working at it to finish in a couple of hours), a good set of matches in R6 this morning with SyncHeart, DarkToaster, and my son, a lesson on the layers of writing in the New Testament including metaphor as more than historic fact, and a walk where I didn't cough continuously for longer than I had breath.  With the latter I got to talk with John in good ways about some of the loss elements of my life.

Part of it is facing the fact that the child who I birthed and have shared my life with for nearly two decades is growing up and being a wonderfully capable adult and is going off on adventures a year earlier than I expected. He's thinking of doing something overseas next year for half the year, which is wonderful for him and says a lot about how he's grown. 

I appreciate the good parts of that immensely.  It's a true mother's goal, I think, to have a child who is entirely capable on his own, without me. But there will still be the loss of what was a constant presence in my life, and it's okay to mourn that loss. And, yes, I fully appreciate the fact that I'm not losing <i>him</i>. 

So many things are like that these days... losses or changes that are for the good in many ways, but which are still painful; but I wouldn't or even couldn't change them anyway. So many things that I can't effect a change on that will come out all to the good. All I can do is sit with it, acknowledge that it is, and simply feel my emotions about it all for a while, and then let them go. Acknowledge myself, I guess, give my feeling validation, feeling them lets me get over them.

Part of what I want to remember and enjoy and record for myself includes my interactions with him, much as I recorded so many of his childhood interactions with me. *laughs*  One perfect one for today was during one of the R6 matches, Jet was watching through my eyes, as his operator had already died, and I was on defense. I had kept under cover, quiet, and a Sledge walked into the objective room right in front of me and crouched to do something.  I just watched him for a bit, and then shot him and Jet said, "Mom, you just <i>watched</i> him for sooooo long!"

It made me laugh... as it had taken me a little while to register the fact that that was an enemy, not just one of my guys come into the objective to do something. I was useful for three of the matches, the first one we all had a hard time, and it takes at least one match to get into the groove anyway... and we all acknowledged it. 

Another favorite moment, though was when Sync died to a final 1v1, and he said on Discord, "I'm sorry, I failed that.  Or maybe I'm just bad."  

And Jet jumped in with, "No, you're not."  Just as fast as I did.  *laughs* We both said, "No, you're not bad.  It's just hard."

Synch laughed. "Okay, okay..."

Positivity works so well.  We won the match on the final round, with good play by all of us, together, and we carried the last round for the random guy that had joined us and had gotten ten kills (an insane amount) in the first four rounds.

Another good play that I should remember was a good Hibana play on my part, doing a good long distance heavy breach (the defense can put up metal reinforcements for walls and only Thermite and Hibana can break through them. Thermite has to walk up to the wall to melt it, but Hibana can shoot her melters from a distance) on a wall that was on the other side of the objective than the rest of my team was attacking. I provided distracting fire from that side while they pushed in and when the defense turned to face them, I went in and got a few flank kills myself.  I knowz how to flank!  

I'm doing better at that as I learn the maps, and Jet always praises me when I get a good headshot or a kill.

Another interesting thing is that both Jet and I are on the search committee for our church's next pastor. And we're reading through dozens of profiles together. It's a lot of work, and making our profile was a ton of work, but he's done his part even when he was so exhausted with band, school, and work that he'd fall asleep during the meetings when they got slow. *laughs*  We'll get through this, and I think in doing this I might also work through some of my Stuff with regards to my time as moderator.

It intrigued me, today, to realize that when I stopped being moderator I didn't do my usual 'get on with my next life' thing and cut my hair off.  I did it just before the Florida trip, fifteen inches off to Locks of Love, and now I have a daily reminder that things are different.  I've actually been pretty good, suddenly, with going to sleep at a reasonable time, when I spent the whole two years after the moderatorship just flailing.  The lack of hair is a constant reminder that I can and do change.  So I'll use that to try and keep climbing.