Welcome to this week’s edition of the Five Minute Friday writing prompt link-up!
I can NOT believe we’re already at the end of January! Sheesh!
While we had no snow whatsoever in December here in West Michigan, January sure made up for it . . . Our little suburb got 18 inches of snow in a 48-hour period of time a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully I am privileged to work from home, so I just hunkered down and stayed warm inside!
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This week’s FMF writing prompt is: FAR
If you’ve been around here for a while, you probably know that my daughter left for college in August. And while she does come home fairly regularly, she is three hours away and let’s just say it was an adjustment for me. 🙂
Then this past month, from mid-December through the first week of January, I got spoiled by having her back home in her own bed in her own room.
It’s crazy how quickly we can adapt back to old habits and routines, isn’t it?
But then the break was over.
I thought I would be okay because we’d said goodbye several times after short weekend visits, but this time? After she had been home for a month?
Man, it stung! I was not prepared. Plus, even though I know a three-hour drive is really not that far . . . After she left and I walked past her empty bedroom, three hours away felt SO far away!
I thought about how my single mom must have felt when her oldest of two daughters left home a month before her 21st birthday to fly across the Atlantic to spend five months in Cape Town, South Africa. Way back in 2002, before I even had a cell phone, let alone anything remotely close to the “Find My” tracking app!
She had to wait hours with no contact at all before I could use an international calling card and a payphone to call her landline and talk fast so I didn’t waste all the minutes on the card in one call.
When I put it into perspective that way, I know I’m spoiled. I know so many parents have it much harder and have to go so much longer without seeing their children.
But for now, three hours away still feels far.
STOP.
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Speaking of far, my featured resource today is a book I finished in December and really appreciated:
by Esau McCaulley
Affiliate link
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Join us with your own five-minute freewrite by clicking the blue button below to share your work, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:
One day I will go far away,
and it’s beautiful, I know,
but in truth I have to say
that I do not want to go.
Yes, the sunsets there are brighter,
and the streets are paved in gold,
but is there room for a warfighter
who swore he never would grow old,
or will I be out at the edge,
avoiding the uneasy stare,
shaking heads at window-ledge
from the blessed who are aware
that the God who took me in
forgot to catalogue my sin?
Three minutes and a bit.
There is definitely something to be said for being able to work from home.
Not if you do phone training, and have a really talkative Redbone Coonhound.