Frozen puddles of Canada...

I am flying over Manitoba with all its frozen puddles scattered across it’s backyard. I wonder if God ever feels temped to put on his winter boots, bend his divine knees, leap up and break the ice of the world. Head cranked down and utterly focused on making sure every little bubble is crunched. I can only imagine that there are times where he just has to walk away from it all and play with his creation.
Kirst and I were talking as we were driving out to the mountains about how our hearts can only manage so much pain and stress at a time. And if we are lucky enough, we have learned to recognize when we are on the verge of “too much” and know how to stop and take a break. We see this with kids in extremely stressful situations all the time. They will just stop and play, escape. When kids loose opportunities to play or are restricted in their play, we know that things start to get messy. We have this same innate alarm as adults, but we sure push it don’t we. We can see disaster ahead as we come to the cliff of “too much” yet we convince ourselves that stopping to play is just not an option. This is also where things get messy for us.
(Oh there is a good puddle. I would jump my little boots right across that one!)
I have a pretty significant decision ahead of me. I have been offered a job back in Calgary with my old employer. It is with the Muslim private schools and it gave me butterflies talking about it. I could not count the number of times in my studies over the last year that I thought how Child Life would be amazing in the schools. I would be back with my old team that I love and respect and back in an environment where I have room to dream, create, and breathe. It would also mean that I would be back in Calgary in September, where my life heart is. The problem is that my work heart may be in Toronto for longer. There will be a maternity leave coming up in November as a grief counsellor with the centre that I will be working at.

And of course there is my travel heart to consider. I have been thinking that if I take the mat leave that I would spend a month at home and go and see Erin in South Korea and visit Thailand and Cambodia for a month. BUT then just to make things even harder my favorite travel buddy, my cousin Sarah who coincidently has also been looking at meeting up with friends in those very places, just found out that she will likely have a full year teaching position instead of just until May next year. Making it so that she would miss meeting her friends and leaving us with the same time off if I take the school job.
A LOT to percolate. And I need to decide in a couple weeks while I am trying to get settled, start a new job, and study for my certification exam on the 21st. Ummmm... this little kid is going to need to play for her mental health a fair bit!
Now we are over Thunder Bay and there are hundreds of little puddles, you know the one’s that you have to dig your toes in to break : )
Thanks for an AMAZING time at home guys. I would share all about it but I have not cried yet today and I I think I will keep it that way and go and play with my music.
How are you going to play today?