It’s disappointment that’s kept me from blogging for so long. It’s been holding my heart down so of course my hands have followed suit. I’m still battling this love-hate thing with blogging. I hate the fact that I have a record of my hopes and dreams and plans and it seems like they’re all still hopes and dreams and plans. Sometimes I think I’m asking for heartache when I take dreams, whimsical and wispy, and paint hard edges on them and try to fill in the details with a fine brush and stick them in a frame and announce to those passing nearby “This – this is my dream!”.

I’m tempted think that dreams are too delicate for that kind of treatment. They need to be nourished carefully in half-light, stroked and spoken to gently in hopes that they can grow strong enough to support themselves and emerge suddenly and delightfully, or else die in the privacy of their cocoon where none will know that they once lived at all… that they dreamed once of being. But I know that it’s not dreams that are that fragile. As intangible as they can seem they’re hardy. It’s me that is fragile. Maybe it’s ego. Maybe it’s my picture of myself that I dislike once the hard edges and details have been added. Maybe I prefer the fantasy that’s left when I forget as much as I tend to, to the sentences which can’t be challenged after they’ve been said – the ones that always will say how it really was.

So when the list is made of the things that can cripple a man someone make sure that “disappointment” get’s the prominent position it deserves. But something else insists that I write. It’s push is strong enough that I’ve interrupted my work (work that I actually don’t mind doing and was making good progress at I might add) to capture what it wants to say. I really have so much to be grateful for. And gratitude unexpressed… well… isn’t.

God has blessed us with a daughter. We’ve named her Maia Lisanne and I’ve been so absorbed in all that’s come with this gift – diapers and bottles and burping and vomit and crying and falling asleep and tiny fingers and eyes that follow my face. And I’m amazed at very small things, which I think is as close as I can get to be being born into this world again. And we’re settling comfortably into our new home. And God continues to take good care of us, of all of us each day. So thanks Dad for all you’ve done. I am satisfied with what you’ve given and understand that you give a peace which quiets the restlessness and recriminations.

I don’t think gratitude and disappointment are opposites. But I do know that gratitude has prised me from under disappointment this time. I think I’ll have to battle disappointment a lot along this journey so I’d better label my tools well. So I’m back. The writer isn’t dead. If only I could shape all of this stuff into song…