Fifteen-years-ago, the point in time when I started writing essays on this blog, feels at least a galaxy removed from Now. Part of that feeling has to do with the multitude of circumstances that have changed, between Then and Now. I have more children in the world (thanks to an “oops” pregnancy in my 40’s, an infant for whom I found a great adoptive-Mom), but no children in my life (thanks to my combination of Bipolar and alcoholic relapse eleven years ago, which stripped my children of the desire to know me). I live in a different state, work a different job, love a different husband. I’ve been widowed, and rescued.

And it’s not only the number of circumstances that have changed, but also the number of changes between Then and Now that make it feel so far removed. My job has changed seven times. My address has changed five times. My NAME has changed three times.

I don’t spend a great deal of time pondering those changes, but they’ve simmered to the surface this week. See, when I came back to this blog earlier in the week, after nearly nine months’ absence, I discovered the unprecedented amount of traffic the blog has been getting while I have been absent. And it’s not the recent posts that were racking up the greatest numbers, but posts from more than a decade ago. I find myself bemused, and wondering what algorithm of the internet has put these posts in front of people now. Six or seven or thirteen thousand times a month.

And I began to read them myself.

I’d say it’s a bittersweet experience, revisiting my earlier life, but “bitter” isn’t the fitting first half of that word. Sadsweet, maybe. Still with a heavier emphasis on the “sweet” than the “sad”—because I did get to have that life, especially that time with my kids. And I have “sweet” feelings about my life Now. The “sad” stems from the utter absence of those two characters in my now-life, and knowing how damaged we all are because of it.

My daughter has not-spoken to me for as many years of her life as she did speak to me—eleven of each. She’s older now than her father and I were when we married, and my son is the age we were when we had him. I fail to imagine the circumstance that could bring about a rapprochement after this many years of studied silence on their part, and decreasing attempts—dwindling to none—of reaching out on mine. (I do remind myself that “failure to imagine” is not an affliction from which God suffers, so nothing is impossible… even if I don’t see how.)

I’ve had to make a deliberate decision, across the last decade, that reuniting with my children could not be a prerequisite of my own ability to be okay. My mental and emotional health couldn’t rely on it, my resolve to make the most of this life God gives me can’t rely on it, my enjoyment of whatever God has in store ahead can’t rely on it.

There’s a line in the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous that touches on the same. It tells us that we can’t hang our Sobriety on any prerequisite circumstances, or on “getting back” what has been lost or thrown away. “Job or no job, wife or no wife,” the line reads.

Children or no children.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t feel sadsweet reading about my time with them. I’m grateful they’re in the world.