A Love Story

I know.  I know I wrote about our first date last year.  But that was last year.  I’m all sorts of nostalgic this year.

It’s funny, though, because when I wrote my post on this date last year, my blog audience consisted mostly of my imaginary friends from my favorite message board.  They don’t know my husband at all, and most of them have never laid eyes on me.  So, I was throwing this story out there to people who don’t know me in my personal, real, day-to-day life and never had.

In the year since then, I took the big leap and started linking my blog to facebook–or vice versa, I’m not sure–and with that, my audience has grown.  Now, it may still be some of my message board friends who are also FB friends who didn’t know about my blog before, but it also includes some friends I interact with on at least a weekly basis, and other friends I haven’t seen much, if at all, over the last 20 years, but who knew me when.  And knew Ry when.  And were our friends when this first date of ours took place.

So, the change in audience makes reflecting on the beginnings of this relationship a little . . . odd.  More intimate?  More exposed?  I’m not sure.  But that won’t stop me.

Because it’s September 14th.  A holiday in this house.  I was greeted first thing this morning with a “Happy September 14th” from a very nice man.  So every year, we pull out the stories.  Much like the pilgrim stories of Thanksgiving.  I’m sure some details have been lost along the way, but I don’t think quite as much has been rewritten as with the pilgrim stories.  We’ve told and re-told our story to one another every 14th of September since 1991–the first anniversary–as well as at various times throughout the year.  And I think it’s important.  I think it’s important for everyone to rehearse, rehash, repeat their own stories.  It helps us remember who we are, who we were.

Yesterday we spent the day with a lovely couple whose only child is in his second year of college.  They were telling us what a shock to their system it was when their son first went away to school.  The two of them sat there and stared at one another:  Well.  What do we do now?  It took them a couple of weeks to realize that, well, now they could go out to dinner with one another any time they wanted, that they could spend all the one-on-one time together they wanted.  They reveled in it.

In the midst of my day-to-day, up-to-my-elbows-in-small-kids life, it’s been important to me, to us, to remember our story.  To remember how it is we got together in the first place and then remember that it is still at the heart of what’s keeping us together.  I’ve spent intentional time and energy on keeping us connected to who we were way-back-when as a way of helping us to stay connected to who we are now–and by we, I mean Ry and Lee, not the whole family–so that we can maintain that we into those days that are out there–somewhere–when it will, once again, be just Ry and Lee rattling around in these halls.  Celebrating the days of yore, the days of just fun and friendship and laugh, laugh, laughing, helps keep us grounded through these days when we are so focused on these little people that it’s sometimes hard to see the face of the grown-up on the other side of the little heads.

So, today we remember.  We remember how we were such good friends.  Just friends.  How our friendship grew slowly, over the course of years.  How we were both surprised when we looked at the other and realized . . . hunh.  You might be a little more than a friend to me.  How the end of our first date, in a very sweet and innocent way, with a hand-hold and a hug, brought us home.  Home to a place we knew we belonged and where we hoped to stay.  It was comfortable and natural and easy.  Just easy.  Like breathing.  Yes.  This is it.  It hasn’t all been easy, but the getting together, the transition from friend to . . . different category of friend . . . was easy.  And that’s where we remain.  Friends of a different kind.  And I give thanks to God for bringing us together in precisely the way he brought us together.  And I pray for 19 more years like the last 19:  years that get better and better.  And then I pray for another 19.  And heck, I might just shoot for another 19 after that.  I like this guy.  I really do.

Another one of those days in the life of a SAHM

Blech. That kind of day. Blech blech blech. One of those days when I feel completely overwhelmed by the task at hand: guiding three people into healthy, productive, Godly adulthood all while making sure we’re not buried in an avalanche of toys and papers-from-who-knows-where and other miscellaneous junk nor dying from some dread disease due to the microorganisms having a field day on my floors and in my bathroom and kitchen, not to mention ensuring that we’re all eating healthy food, and in the meantime maintaining a marriage I’ll still be happy to be a part of when these three other people move out and I’m left staring at this guy, and this guy alone.  *sigh*

The thing is, I feel like I’m doing this in a vacuum.  I’ve said it before, I think.  I feel like I’m just taking shots in the dark, hoping and praying for the best, unable to see how successful (or not) I am for at least another twenty years.  AAAHH!!  Long range planning, you’re not kidding.  And the thing is, if I’m failing, it’s not just a building crumbling down or the end of a corporation–not that these are good things, mind you–it’s three people.  Three human beings living those healthy, Godly, productive lives, or sitting on Death Row with a trail of death and mayhem in their wake.  Ok, so there’s a whole lot in between, but I told you.  It’s one of those days.  And these are the things that fly through my hyper-active brain on days like these.

There’s no immediate feedback.  Sure, my kids love me.  But I’ve seen kids love some monsters of parents.  Toddlers and young elementary school kids are programmed to love their parents.  The tragedy is when they’re knocking themselves out trying to perform well enough for their twisted parents to love them back.  I often worry I’m one of those twisted parents.  That’s when the Death Row image appears.

So.  No immediate feedback.  My husband tells me I’m doing a good job with the whole Mommy business, but he gets paid to tell people nice, encouraging things.  Although he doesn’t lie to his parishioners.  Really.  But he’s an optimist.  And I find those people suspect.

I need to find something to do that has immediate feedback (well, relative to the 20-year plan I’m on now, anyway).  Immediate feedback that I’m doing something well.  I need a hobby.  With instant gratification.  I have a cross-stitch project I started the summer before Isaac was born (um.  so that would be 7 1/2 years ago now, but who’s counting?).  It’s probably an hour from finished.  Maybe if I take that out tonight.  Then I’ll have nice neat little X’s and a complete picture to show me I’m not a complete failure of a person today.

Wow.  This is a whine of epic proportions.  Ok.  Ok.  Think.  Think.  Think.  Get yourself out of this!  If you’ve been reading my stuff since I started in the summer, remember those summer days when I locked myself in my bedroom with the air conditioner set at 67 and, lulled into relaxation by the AC’s white noise, I wrote here, reflected on the good in my life, and came to the end feeling much better for it?  Yeah.  It’s one of those days, but I’m not getting there.  Sure, now my heat is set at 67, so the temperature is the same, but the white noise is Clifford in the background and the buzzing knowledge that Hannah is turning into a vegetable while zoning out on PBSKids.  And my thoughts are just not taking me to that magic land of refreshment.

Ok, little Calvinist.  Here’s your first clue.  When you declare:  “Get yourself out of this!”  That’s when all the sirens and bells and whistles are supposed to go off in your thought-soaked, self-defeating brain.  Ahh.  Yes.  I can’t get myself out of this.  And that’s OK.  Because praise be to God, it’s not all up to me to get myself out of this.  “One of those days” is one of those days to fall prostrate (literally or figuratively) before the One who made me, the One who called me so clearly to this mission, this ministry, the One who promised to be with me always, the One who provides refreshment from a living water to a weary, thirsty soul.

It’s one of those days.  A day for prayer.  A day for Psalms.  A day of surrender.  Tears in my eyes, shoulders heavy and drooping, I proclaim “I cannot do this!!”  Lord, please do it for me.  Lift me up.  Carry me through.  Renew my trust that these three little people are your people, that you’ve placed them in just the home they need to be in order to grow into the people you’d have them be, to do the work you’d have them do.  Your people.  Not my people.  Remind me that you are more than big enough to heal them from my failures.  Remind me that my greatest responsibility is to demonstrate and witness to your love for them.  Return my focus to you; may I seek your approval and affirmation only.  Let that be sufficient.  Let you be sufficient.  Because you are sufficient.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Amen.

Last Day.

And I couldn’t be happier about it. Yet another good going-to-sleep night last night. Really it went about the same as the three previous nights. Now, do we think these kids could do this as easily with two of us here? Do you think Hannah can go to sleep all on her own in her bed, letting her dad just go right downstairs instead of lying down with her for a while which inevitably leads to his falling asleep there and my going up to poke him awake 45 minutes later? (By the time I got to the end of that sentence, did you remember that it started as a question?) My money’s on a big fat Nope! But somehow I think Ry will muddle through having to snuggle with his little girl for a while after not having seen her for four days.

I never mentioned how I didn’t even get to talk to Ry from Friday morning until 8:30 last night. I think that’s some sort of new record. Well at least a record for the last three years or so. It’s amazing to me, our history, the nature of our relationship, the way things have changed. We started out as friends spending all day, every day (Mon-Fri) together, then started dating and added every Friday and Saturday evenings. But then we went to college and only saw each other once a month at best, sometimes less, except for summers, of course. As college progressed, we spent more and more weekends together during the school year, but spent progressively less time together over the summers as Ry’s ROTC training increased. By the end of college we were well-conditioned for separations.

One summer during seminary (Ry’s years) we spent 12 weeks apart while Ry did Chaplain Officer Basic Course. We saw each other once during that time, and only because my beloved aunt died and Ry returned for the funeral. The summer he graduated involved three weeks apart, followed by six weeks together, followed by two weeks apart. Ry’s first six years of ministry involved his spending anywhere from three to six weeks a summer away from home as well as two to six weekends away through the school year. We were so good at separation. We felt like God had really used our college years to prepare us for a marriage of frequent separations.

I never liked being separated from him. I would be offended by the church ladies who suggested how nice a break I must be having with Ry away. That still mystifies me. I always missed him and preferred having him around. I’m pretty sure that’s why we got married. But still, we could enter a zone, the separation zone, and really do OK with it. Then we had Isaac. And all of a sudden, I never wanted Ry to leave home again. Ever. Ry spent 18 months of Isaac’s first two years on Active Duty, coming home every night, but after 14-16-hour days, 29 days a month. That was almost separation. And in some ways worse, because he was there but not there. Since that time, though, he has spent very little time away from home.

Ever since we moved to our current church, he’s been home. He no longer leaves for a week at a time; his weekend retreats are limited to two a year. It’s nice. I like it. But I think in the meantime I’ve lost sight of how well we still really can do with separation. So why so desperate for him not ever ever never to leave? Well. Really there are two different components to the separation, and I don’t think I’ve thought of it before. It’s not so much that I’m can’t-breathe-without-him desperate for him to be here. Ry and I do well enough being separated from one another. But neither of us does really well being alone with the kids for a long time. So. We’re the same as we’ve always been, relationally. We just desperately need each other for the whole parenting thing. And that’s OK. Our kids like having both of us around.

What was nice about these days with him gone is that I’ve discovered I really can do the parenting thing solo. I prefer not to, but I can. I’ve reflected on that a lot as Ry has thought about returning to the Army in some capacity (Reserves or Guard). It really has helped to do better than simply survive these days. Of course it’s required my talking on the phone to my sister two or three times a day, her and my mom spending the day with my kids while I attended Saturday’s presbytery meeting, my sister delivering our take-out pizza on Thursday, as well as her taking Hannah for a special outing all day Friday. OK. So I could do the solo parenting thing if I married my sister. But then, I guess, I wouldn’t be solo anymore, now would I? OK, so back to knowing I can’t really do this parenting thing alone. But should I be able to?

Hmm. Thoughts for another day.