A Little Grace

 First, we made it through our first big holiday of the deployment. Thanksgiving isn't a big, meaningful holiday for us, as even when Jacob is stateside he works, but we got through it.  It is always easier to fill the empty spaces when you are with family, and we were surrounded by so many different family members for an entire week while back in Michigan.  We had a fabulous week away.    

Since we often don't travel for Thanksgiving, if this were a "normal" year we would pack away all of our fall/Turkey decorations and take out all of the Christmas decorations the Friday after Thanksgiving.  This year we were not home on Friday, so instead we only had the Sunday before we went back to life and school open.  

So, me being Type A, uber planned Amanda I had already analyzed the next three weeks, and I knew based on my work schedule, and the kids school schedules we had to get a majority of the Christmas decorating completed on Sunday.  And believe it or not our Sunday was near perfect.  We ran the errands we needed to, got back in plenty of time to drag out all of the decoration boxes, and Cade and I even managed to get the tree up the stairs by ourselves.  The kids were so much help with all the of the decorating everything went better than planned.  

Our last step was our outdoor lights.  Normally while I decorate the inside Jacob works on the outside and then we all come together to do the tree.  Well, for obvious reasons we had to change the order, and to be honest I do not like doing the outside lights so I put it off until the last thing.  And I was reminded quickly why I do not like the outside lights.  For those who don't know Jacob is a "tech nerd".  He loves all the new technology advances, and one of the those advances he has embraced in the last 3 years is the new LED, digital outdoors lights.  You know, the ones they program to make light shows.  I just want lights that light up, and I can hang, which I normally do with the staple gun.  But that is not what I had.

So to be sure I knew how to get these fancy, fandangled lights to light I did the old school plug them in before you hang them to make sure they light trick.  And to my surprise (not) they didn't light.  I read the very small print directions, that left a lot of steps up to the imagination, to no avail. l tried the three different connectors, screwing and unscrewing them multiple times.  I know you can all see where this is going.  After about an hour, I gave up, honestly I was VERY frustrated, and told the kids we would have to try again the next day.  

Which we did.  Except the next day was Monday.  Back to work after a week off.  A very busy and slightly stressful day led me to get home a little later than I wanted, and I only had about 30 minutes to work on the lights before I had to get dinner started.  I had "researched" and googled the type of lights, and my issue of not being able to get the lights to register on my blue tooth, in the app, yes, this is the kind of lights he left me with.... I felt confident I would be able to troubleshoot it, even if I didn't get them hung that evening.  

45 minutes later I was near cussing and the lights did NOT register on my repeatedly re-installed app.  

I decided I couldn't give any more time to this, sent Jacob a very strongly worded message about my dislike of the new bulbs, and how I was not amused that he had left me with this technical mess.  I may have added a few extra phrases just to make sure he knew my feelings on the matter.  Then I started dinner. 

At dinner I was expressing my sorrow for not being able to figure out the lights.  I let the kids know that their dad and I might be able to connect over the weekend, but that the lights wouldn't be out any time soon. I was feeling so defeated for what I wasn't able to do.   And do you know what our eldest said?!

"If the lights are going to be that much trouble, let's just not do them".  

Stated as matter as factly as possible.  We both glanced over at Ellee, and she nodded.  

That was an amazing moment for me.  The lightbulb click (and I thought at least I can get one bulb to work).  I can not be all things for Cade and Ellee.  I can be me.  I can be their mom.  But I can not fill the space that their dad holds in our household and in their hearts.  And to be honest I had been trying to completely fill both spaces since he left.  

Duh.  If it was going to so much trouble why stress.  Will it ruin Christmas to not have the outside lights on for a year?!  I mean when put so plainly it all seemed to make sense.   I not only felt a bit insane, but also a sense of relief.  We have done a decent job as a military family explaining that sometimes we have to make choices that are different than other families, and the kids got it.  Now, I had to get on board.  

Later than evening, when Jacob awoke to my wonderfully written message, he video messaged me, 4:30a his time, and 9:30p our time.  And wouldn't you know it, there was a connector piece I didn't know about that conducts the bluetooth signal, and as soon as that was plugged in, the lights lit up.  

I did end up putting out the lights later in the week.  They are nowhere near the amazing job Jacob does.  I am lucky our neighbors know he is gone and they too will offer a little grace this year with the lack of display.  I do not know how long these literally taped up lights will stay put, as the staple gun kept jamming, and so they are up with electrical tape. But they are up, who cares if they don't last.  I know that if I ask the kids to help me box them up for next year, we will remember this whole ordeal as a funny memory.   We will move on.  Because we believe everyone needs grace.  I just have to apply what we have been teaching for myself.  

  

Over a Month In: What A Wild Ride

 Let me start this post with this will be a mashing of many ideas and stories all in one.  The last month has been a wild ride, and I will try to give you a little glimpse.  

First, we are over a month in.  The first two weeks I found myself contemplating the silence.  The calmness.  How regular the routine seemed after what I felt like was a HUGE jolt.  Contemplating in a way that may have felt and looked very much like a pity party every night after 8pm.  This was the time that Jacob and I would normally decompress, make plans for the next day, and really connect.  Now after the kids went to bed, the house was a whole lot of quiet.  For the first few weeks the amount of time that stood in front of us seems unfathomable.  So much so I felt my brain was unable to comprehend it.  It felt so overwhelming.  

Then in weeks 3 and 4 I wasn't so upset with the quietness.  I harnessed my amazing ability of creating tasks, and accompanying timelines, and I vowed to use the after-kids-are-in-bed time to be "productive".  I found a new sense of identity in completing tasks.  But that tired quickly.  I wasn't really processing the time that I would have to get through before we would feel "normal" again, I was actively ignoring those feeling, and shoving them to the side  I know now I was lulling myself into a false sense of I-can-will-the-Army-to-follow-my-timeline sort of thought.  I felt confident by living in denial my well thought out plan would surely be communicated the next time I heard from J.  I think you all know how that turned out.  

Because reality did finally show up. During one of the more recent conversations my heart was torn a bit when I was told he would not be home for a concert I really wanted to attend with him.  The realization of this was hard, even though if I were honest with myself I knew it.  I was just ignoring it as to not move through the emotional phases.  I am sure this is a survival tactic of some kind.  I will say reality still hurts, but it will work out best to actually be dealing with facts, and not make believe notions believing in something false and then having to deal with the let down just a while down the road. 

 Now a month in I do feel like I can think a little clearer.  Jacob has a new schedule and although it is hard to mesh with ours, we are doing a bit better each day.  I remind myself often that technology is amazing, and to think back on his first deployment where we would wait days to hear from him and he was using a pay phone with a prepaid card.  Now we can communicate at lot easier than that.  

The deployment murphy law has been kinder than in the past.  I have struggled getting all household, children, work, and personal tasks completed within the confines of open business hours, but I would give myself about  a 90%.  We have only sprung one plumbing leak. I caught it fast, and as I type I am awaiting the plumbers, for what I am really hoping is a quick fix.  The dryer has some strange error, but seems to be drying fine, and the internet says to just reset the dryer and it will fix itself... I will get around to it.  The kids got hair cuts, we waited longer than we should have, but it got done.  Oh, and I got the bike hitch off the top shelf in the garage (read way over my head even as I stood on the 7 foot ladder), all by myself, and did not chip a nail.  And only one pet has been sick and needed vet care, if you don't count the hamster that just passed, because that one didn't need vet care if you get what I mean.

I will leave you all with a little story.  This week when it seemed like EVERY task was taking about 5 times longer than it should, and more and more tasks were being thrown at me, J sent me a selfie with a camel.  

I wrote back (while stuck in traffic for the 3rd day in a row)

"Here I am just trying to survive, and you are taking selfies with a camel?!?!"

There has to be some kind of irony there.