Respite, Rae, and Rambling

I'm thoroughly enjoying Texas. Loving every minute of being so loved and needed by the DeVaults. Savvy needs the girly attention of flipping through magazines and playing dollies. Reed needs the attention logical answers and occasional pretending. Jaxon needs the giggling, tickling and general being silly. And I love it. I haven't been this needed in so long. And it is so refreshing. As my fingers click and clatter across the keys, Rae is singing quietly with each child as she puts them to bed, and admittedly I'm crying. I want so badly to be so loved and needed by my own children. I want so badly a man to love me as her Phill loves her. I want so badly to be more like Rachel. In so many ways. I wish I had more curves, like Rae's perfect shape. I wish I had more of her empathy and depth of emotion in general. I wish I had her energy, her creativity in and out of the home, her ability to make it work (even if "it" is a house that they don't quite fit in, or a scheduling inconvenience).
I don't want to leave. I want to stay sleeping on her couch, petting the kitties--Jude and Olive--, playing with kids, laughing with Phill and Rae, and helping with the endless laundry and dishes of a young family. I want to stay here, healing, until I am whole. I wish I could. And yet the real world calls. Bills, family, school are all screaming my name. I desperately just want to ignore them and stay, stay, stay. Maybe I can. I don't know. But for now I will savor the moments that seem so much like a fairy-tale or a movie. Moments that don't seem to belong in my life. Moments I love. Moments I need. Moments that will sustain me through the future, as the imagination of them sustained me through the past months.
The hardest times of my life have been this past year, and just when I think they're over, they're only beginning. And I've just tried. Tried to keep going, tried to make the best decisions, tried to go in the right direction, tried to keep seeing the good and the beautiful, tried to be brave. Tried. And that's all I could've done, all I can do. That's all any of us can do. Is just try. If that's what we are doing, we can't be ashamed of ourselves. Because we tried. And I have. And I'm okay with it...almost. I'll keep trying and trying and probably crying. Hopefully times will get better. Hopefully.