I had intended to write much more often than I have over these past 9 months. I’ve come close to writing quite few times but because I’m not a trained writer, I write more from the heart than from the head. It’s a big time commitment and I need to feel drawn to write. On a more practical side, I’m just happy to have made it this far with all the things I have to take care of, so writing isn’t always high on the list. I wish that I could channel thoughts into my blog though because I’m always formulating in my mind.
Today is 6 days away from Dan being home. I don’t really even remember believing that we’d ever get this close to the end. Although the end is near in days, today it feels like forever. The base is in communication lockdown, something that I don’t think has happened even once since the beginning, unless my memory is wrong. I don’t fully understand what has to happen for a lockdown to occur but I’m pretty sure that it’s either a serious threat of some kind or something very important happening that cannot be compromised. Dan was able to text me and let me know but I am anxious just the same. I am not familiar enough with their environment to know whether he is in real danger or not. I’m very shaky at the thought of something happening so close to the end. I just want him to be able to get out and begin his way home.
The expectation so close to the end is that we’re both terribly excited. We are of course, but it’s easy to forget that it’s complicated. We have developed a routine both in our separate lives and in our relating to each other that has been disturbed with the approaching end. Dan has been extremely busy with added work since the first group left and I’ve just been trying to hang on until it’s all over. Our communication has been challenging at times and today, nonexistent. It’s very uncomfortable. I’m not sleeping well anymore because I feel unsettled and restless from excitement and nervousness. I ache for time to move faster so I’m not peaceful or in the moment. I’m very emotional and am close to crying whenever I think of seeing Dan’s face. I’m sure that this will only get worse over the course of the week.
I am very aware of the stress that I’ve been carrying. My spirit, heart, mind and body all feel very tired. Stress is one of those things that can be low-level for so long that you forget it’s there. I think maybe because I’m starting to relax a little, I’m realizing how much I’ve been carrying on my own. I can’t even imagine how exhausted I’m going to feel next weekend when I can fully let go and begin to rest. I’m pretty sure that the stress has been taking its toll on my body for a while now because I’ve been sick almost consistently since Christmas and on Friday I just found out that I have shingles. From what I understand, shingles is something you get when your immune system is compromised so either I have something that is weakening my immune system, or I’m incredibly tired and stressed; probably both are true.
I will reserve sharing about Dan’s experience until I am able to hear it directly from him. His experience is nothing that I can even imagine and I feel like it would do a great disservice to his story to try and describe something that is so foreign to me and so real to him.
I was reminded this week of just how lonely this life can be. I say this not with self-pity, although I have plenty of it, but from a place of observation. On Wed I went to the reintegration briefing held by the family resource centre for spouses and families of returning military members. I was the only spouse there who didn’t have kids so I felt out of place enough. I’m no stranger to the feeling of being not as strong or capable as other wives who have one or several kids. Afterwards, one of the wives said “I don’t mean to belittle your experience or anything, but I really think that it’s easier to handle when you don’t have kids.” So I asked myself – why do you feel like it’s so tough if you don’t have kids? I know in my head that this is subjective. Of course it’s not the same as if I had kids. It felt similar to how I reacted when I read about that woman saying that we shouldn’t complain about being in the military because moving around a lot kept us from getting tired of our neighbors and because we get to see more of the world. All true, but it completely misses the point. This time the comment was that when you don’t have kids, you don’t have to worry about anyone else’s wellbeing and if you want to, you can have cereal for supper. Yes, these are great advantages indeed. Here’s the other side: I realized this week that I don’t really fit in with the military community and I don’t really fit in with the normal world. I don’t know how many people have asked me if the military is a close-knit community because that’s the impression that the TV shows give. It isn’t a close-knit community in my experience. I haven’t really met more than a few people, and now after seeing the other wives, I know that I’d never be friends with them. Even at the briefing all they talked about was getting drunk with their husbands when they got home, which is their choice, but what’s more, they spoke with such a harsh tone in their voice that I found it hard to believe that they hadn’t seen their husbands in several months. I really can’t imagine loving someone to death and caring only that they come home to resume their household responsibilities and help take care of the kids. I want to be careful here too because these are very real longings and I have them myself; I am so excited to not have to carry all the household chores by myself and if we had kids, I’d be so excited to not be single-parenting. But these are secondary longings to me – my first longing is to be reunited with the love of my life. So I don’t fit in with the other wives. I also don’t fit in with the normal world. My friends and church have been really amazing through this whole thing and have given more than I could have ever asked for, but I’m still aware that when I just need to cry at the end of the day, some of my friends are putting their kids to bed and some of them are cuddling with their husbands, and there isn’t really a place for me there. Sure I only have to worry about my own well-being, but it’s really hard to be alone so much of the time and not feel forgotten or like you don’t belong anywhere or to anyone. Sure, I can eat cereal for supper but it’s really sucks to have to cook for yourself all the time and never share a meal with someone or have a reason to care about what you eat. Yes, it’s different for me without kids, but it’s still hard. I’ve started a new job twice, dealt with car trouble multiple times, battled illness, bad weather, depression and hopelessness, so however great it is to be the only one, I really do feel like I’m the only one in this boat.
On a different note, I have been wrestling with the idea of Margin. This is a spiritual practice of sorts that involves leaving space in your life. The easiest way to understand this concept is to relate it to the more common definition of margin, which for most of us is the space around the edge of a written page. Another definition I like is: “a boundary indicating the limit beyond which something should not go or below which something should not fall.” Anyway, it’s a difficult concept to understand because it’s fairly subjective but the idea is that it’s important not to cram your life full because we’re not meant to have every moment so full that you end up missing out on the most important things. I started thinking about this again because it was included in a book I just finished called Good and Beautiful God, which I could say a hundred wonderful things about. The example the author gave was something like this: “Not having margin is like being late to an appt because there was traffic and you were 10 mins late picking your kid up from school because you were 15 mins late leaving work. Margin is having time to get somewhere early and not have to rush.” I really love the thought of margin. I remember saying to Dan a while ago that I hated (strong word, intended) the idea of being so busy that I was rushed and late getting everywhere and that I barely had time to get from one place to the next or do anything I enjoyed because my life was so full. That kind of life is the ugliest thing I could imagine. I really like the idea that I could have a life with space. Putting this into practice is entirely more difficult than liking the idea. Here again we could talk about how having kids makes it even more difficult, so when I have kids I will again wrestle with this idea. I think though that it will be a central practice in my life because it’s necessary for my well-being. So right now it’s not too difficult because I live at least 30 mins away from my friends and very close to work which means that I get to work easily, but I don’t see friends more than once or twice a week because it makes the nights very full to drive an hour plus visiting time. I’ve committed to being involved only with worship at church because after a weeknight practice, I spend all of Sunday morning there. I also want to fit in exercise and music lessons at some point. Plus time with Dan, and God. And enough time to wind down before bed to get a good restful sleep. There aren’t many things packed into my life really, but they’re all good things. What does a person do with all the other good things that need to get done? Like volunteering, helping friends, etc, etc. I don’t know. That’s something I haven’t even worked out, but the best I can tell is that having margin creates the kind of life that makes it possible for you to stretch the margins once in a while without risking a complete breakdown, so that sounds good.
The other thing that I’ve been contemplating is my attitude. I guess somewhere along the way I must have really started hating parts of my life because it seemed like until recently there was nothing I really liked about it. I know that I was unhappy with areas of my life – my relationships were draining, I worked jobs that I really couldn’t stand, I had no purpose or direction and I just felt heavy. I don’t really know why but sometime before Christmas I was driving to the chiropractor, I think, and I remember asking myself – “what is it that you dislike about your life now?” And I honestly couldn’t believe that my answers were so different than years before, yet I was still behaving as if I hated my life. In place of draining relationships I had friendships that were nurturing and invigorating, in place of jobs that I hated I had a new accounting diploma (this is funny now because I’m back in a job that I’m not sure is good for me, and some days, yes I hate it), in place of having no direction or purpose I had a wonderful life of my own with a great husband and in place of heaviness I had a whole lot to be thankful for and joyful about. But it was still really surprising to me that I’d been so blind to the reality of my life. I think what’s more is that I was so used to looking at the world a certain way and behaving a certain way about it that I hadn’t even taken the time to realize that my life’s landscape had completely changed, yet I had painted a picture in my mind that I kept looking at as reality. It was very eye-opening. So since then I’ve kind of been paying attention to that concept when I look at my surroundings. I remember reading somewhere that if living life with God is supposed to grow you into a more joyful, free, loving person, then it’s amazing how many people when they get older end up beaten down, resentful and bitter. This is not what I want to be when I get older. God himself said that he is doing new things in us and one of my friends always said that if God is alive in us, we should always be growing in our ability to love and extend grace and forgiveness and all of those fruitful things. So I guess this is just another way that knowing God actually is supposed to change your life. It’s not like things change all at once, but they do change and we should expect that they change and look for the new things that are coming so that we don’t end up looking through the lens of our old life when we have a completely new one. I feel sad now for the people I see who live as if something that defined their life at one point will be true for them forever. It really is sad because that’s not the truth – the truth is that God is making all things new.
Dear husband, I pray that you’re safe and surrounded by God’s protection and care. I love you.
