Beach Analogy

I was laying there today, floating along several yards off the shores of Clearwater Beach, looking at my toes as they bobbed above water, and two thoughts flew into my head. First off, how much I wish I'd painted my toes some pretty, bright color. Maybe a red. (I seem to be getting more girly in my old age. I feel a desperate need for bottles and bottles of pretty nail polish, and I recently bought my very first tube of stunning red lipstick!) Then I could take an awesome picture of them as they bobbed in and out of the waves. (If I'd had my camera out there, which I wouldn't have.) Second, how my floating there in the water lazily waiting for the waves to deposit me back on the shore made up a pretty good analogy for how I'd been feeling this week. (I was also hoping that a shark wasn't going to swim up and eat me, but I always hope that when I'm at the beach. I've seen Jaws too many times.)

We found out some pretty big news this week. It's huge. It's exciting, and it's something we've been praying for and wanting for a long time. So, when we found out, my first reaction was an almost overwhelming joy. Michael and I hugged, laughed, cried, and gave silent cheers (not wanting to wake up the littles, who were sleeping just feet away), both so happy that our prayers had been answered.

And then it hit me. Everything is going to change. And then I got scared. 

We're a military family. Out life is change. However, we've been at the same base now for five and a half years. It's not my favorite place, but I think it could be if only we were closer to family. I grew up with family close. I enjoyed the structure, the stability, the bonds I have with all members of my family. It's been a big worry for me that the boys won't have that. that they won't have a place they can come back to and feel like they are home, because the life of military families is a life of moving around and change. Except we've been at our base for five and a half years, with no sign of orders on the horizon. We have made an established, comfortable home in Idaho, even if it's not my favorite place. It is still my sons's home. And if it's home to him, that's important to me.

And this news means we'll be moving "soon". To a new place, with new people, and new experiences. While that is exciting to an extent, it is also scary. And as I thought about telling my oldest that we were going to have to leave my stomach began to tie its self into knots. Idaho is his home! It's his safe place. It's what he knows, and that is going to be taken away from him. No matter how much we wanted orders and wanted this change, it makes me sad to know that he is going to be sad, worried, and scared. No mother wants that for her babies, and I can't stop it. 

To make it worse for the planner in me, we don't know when or where we will be moving yet. (Which explains the quotations around the word soon from the paragraph above) In fact, it could be many, many months before we do know. It could be more than a year before this happens, or it could be six months from now. We have no idea. I am not the type of person who enjoys feeling out of control, but there you have it. There isn't a thing I can do about it. Or the fact that, as much as we don't like Idaho, we are very aware that we could end up somewhere far worse. Or even farther away from family. And that would be so sad. 

I'm also not the type of person who makes new friends without effort, and I hate leaving old ones. I try to make friends, but I am shy, and awkward, and a little backwards, and it takes me time. I cherish the people in my life who have managed to scratch through all that oddness on the surface and see who I really am inside, and I am going to hate leaving those people behind. It's not as bad as it could have been  in a different age. And age before Facebook and Skype and unlimited long distance, but it isn't the same as showing up on a friend's doorstep loaded up with babies, toys, food, and the promise of fun. It's not the same as being so comfortable in another person's house that you kick off your shoes, roll up your sleeves, and help with dinner and mopping and children as if it were your own home.

It's change, and change is scary. It is exciting, and new, and something we wanted, but it's also a little bit scary to know that your life isn't ever going to be quite the same again.   

So, back to me bobbing around on the waves at Clearwater staring at my toes and having deep thoughts about how this paralleled my life. :) There I was, splayed out in the water like a little girl and allowing the waves to bounce me around wherever they wished as I alternated looking up at the sunset streaked sky and my dismally unpainted toes, and I realized that I didn't really know where the current was taking me. (Though I would hopefully land somewhere close to where we had deposited our bags and towels before everyone tore off at breakneck speed for the joys of the waves.) I didn't know when I was going to get there, or what the stretch of beach I landed on would be like. I didn't know who the poor tourists would be wherever I happened to make shore or what they were going to think of the crazy almost thirty year old woman who washed up at their feet. Heck, I didn't know that a shark wasn't going to swim up and bite me in the rear end as I sat their pondering. (I sincerely hoped that they would not.)

What I did know was that, wherever I happened to be when I finally climbed out of the salty water, my family would be there waiting for me. They would smile and laugh and wrap me in their arms and it would feel like home. The ground would be solid under my feet, and if I did happen to stumble in the sand, my husband would be there to steady me. There would be pretty shells and not-so-pretty seaweed, and we would oooh and ahhh over the one while refusing to dwell on the other. I would photograph everything to chronicle yet another new adventure, and life will be good.

And it will be after all these big changes come too. Because we have each other.

And because it wouldn't feel right to have a post with absolutely no pictures, here they are. My plain, boring, unpainted toes. I think they need a remodel. However, I do have brand new, bright red, polka dot flip flops, and that is pretty fun! New can be awesome!

You Can't Go Home Again

 

I used to think there was no truth to that statement. After all, didn't I do just that three weeks ago today when I hopped on a plane and flew back to Ohio? Well, yes and no. 

Going home was amazing! While the flight scared the jeebers out of me, watching the land below change from brown and barren to green and lush was so exciting. (Though it did take me awhile to realize that the fuzzy black patterns below were trees...It has clearly been way too long!) Driving away from the airport and seeing Ohio for the first time in two and a half years left me in awe! There were trees and hills and so many people!!! As we drove to dinner with my family I saw more people and cars in about 20 minutes than I've seen in almost three years in Idaho! We were on an 8 lane highway!!! It was a little frightening, and I had a certain moment of kin ship with the scared little Country Mouse his first time in the City. I realized then that I have been slightly institutionalized by our remote location and the feeling of security you get by living in what is essentially a highly guarded gated community. With jets. (Which I missed the sound of immensely while we were gone!) 

So much was the same! Part of me felt like we had never left. Every way I turned my head there was something else as familiar to me as my own house. The flower shop on the corner that has been there since before I could remember, the park where they do the fireworks display every year, the street my high school is on...I could close my eyes and almost feel like I'd never been gone. Never been in Idaho for two and a half years. Idaho quickly began to feel like some kind of warped dream. 

Best of all was my grandparent's home, which is very much the house that built me. It looked the same, it felt the same, it even smelled the same! For the first time in such a long time I got to hug my Grandmama! Before moving to Idaho, I had never gone much more than a month without seeing my grandparents in all of my life. Now they were meeting their Great-Grandson for the first time and he was a year old already. Not that they haven't seen pictures, (I've been told I don't take enough) but now they actually had the opportunity to touch him and hold him and see what an amazing little person he is for themselves.

We got to hear the sound of birdsong in the morning as hundreds of the little feathered creatures sang their homage to the rising sun. We got to listen as the wind blew through the trees. We hear plenty on wind in Idaho, but not the sounds as it sways through the branched and leaves...and the lack of trees in Idaho also leads to a lack of birds and thus morning choirs.

Then there were our friends and family! I can't begin to describe what it was like to see everyone again. While my mother, father, brother and sister had been out to Idaho a couple of times, no one else had been able to visit us in the time we had been gone. We hadn't seen our oldest niece since she was one and had never even met our youngest niece. Parker had to meet his Godparents (my cousin, Alexandra and our best friend, Chris.) and his great-grandparents...and it was wonderful for us to see them again too of course...it was overwhelming and amazing and busy. You never realize how much you are going to miss a place or its people until the chance to see them is gone. In many cases it was as though no time had passed at all. We eased back into our friendships and relationships as though we'd been gone for a long weekend instead of long years. 

It was like we had never left.

Except that we had.

For all that was the same, there was just as much that was different. There were buildings and stores and places that we knew and frequented that were long gone. A walk through the Dayton Mall broke our hearts. It's turned into a ghost town to the point where tumbleweeds bouncing down the walkway wouldn't have surprised me at all. When we went back to my old school I was shocked to see the younger brothers and sisters of children I had taught were one and two classrooms above mine. Not that I didn't know that the children were growing, but seeing it with my own two eyes was a shock! Both of my parents are living somewhere new, which is a beautiful home, but it's still different than it was when we left...

Hardest of all was the changes in the people. As I said, with some of our people it was as easy to find our place with them as flipping open a familiar book. With others the passing in time was far too obvious. There is still friendship there, still emotions, but people change. No matter how much I would like it, time doesn't freeze when we leave a place, and people living their lives changes them, sometimes in different directions. I understand this. Michael and I have certainly changed. After all, we have a son now. That's changed us. For the better, but it's still a change. When you're coming back into a group of people who don't even have spouses, much less children, with a little toddling child at your side, things are bound to be different. There was a certain discomfort and uncertainty that I am not used to with my people, and it made me sadder than I can begin to express.

People have gotten older. My parents and Grandparents have all aged, which comes as a shock though I know it shouldn't. I think all of us to some extent believe that the important "grown ups" in our life will always be as we see them. Immortal. There are more gray hairs now. More little things that the unfamiliar eye will notice while someone who sees it every day would probably overlook. One of my dearest friends from high school is losing his father, a man who had always been so joking and youthful...

...Days pass, weeks pass, months pass, and years pass. They pass by quicker every year, and with their passing comes change. It can't be stopped, it can't be reasoned with, and it's not all bad. Some of it is very, very good...and it is still hard to see it happening and know that you can't go back to the way things were, even for a little while. I wouldn't change my life for anything, even as far as we must be from the people and places we love for now...but the distance makes true the statement that "you can't go home again". Yes, you can hop on a plane and go back to the places that remain. You can see the people, laugh about the old times and make new memories...but there will always be differences. Every day brings a new change, and all those changes add up. There were many good times during our trip to Ohio, but it brought about many realizations as well. 

We will go home again as soon as we can, hopefully sooner than later. I look forward to it, but I know now that it won't be the same ever again, not really. And that's OK, even if it is a little sad.

God bless and thank you for reading.

 

One Fear Conquered, One Fear Realized

Well, here I am. Obviously I survived the flights home, though how I did that I am not entirely sure.  We had some crazy turbulence, and I spent a lot of time praying, eyes shut tight, hands gripping the seats so hard my fingers hurt. Luckily, I couldn't completely loose myself in that fear, because I had Parker there, who was unsettled when I was unsettled. There was much nervous laughter on my part, but we all survived.

And, I conquered a fear! If you remember, in a recent blog about my plane fears, I shared that I don't move once I am on the plane for fear that my movement will unbalance the plane and send us all crashing towards the Earth. Because of this, I haven't used the rest room in a plane since I was a very little girl and far too young to understand the dangers of air travel. It appears that God decided to test that theory while on the smallest plane flying out of Dayton yesterday. (Which still wasn't as small as the prop plane I took to Witchita Falls several years ago. It didn't even have a bathroom.) After several orange juices, I found myself in desperate need of some relief, and some courage. It was almost a 3 hour flight, and we weren't even half way through yet, so the choices were limited to either standing up and walking to the back of the plane to brave the potty or wetting myself without a change of clothes on hand.

I seriously considered the second option for several minutes.

Imagine my shock when I found myself unbuckling my seat belt and standing in the foot wide aisle, making my teetering way back towards the 15 inch wide door at the back of the plane! Now, call my crazy if you wish, but I can feel the vast amount of space that is underneath me when I am on a plane, and it has always been a very strange feeling. It is worse when you're walking over it, aware that the only thing between you and that immense amount of empty space is a small cargo bay with some scattered luggage.

Once through the door I found myself in the smallest, noisiest, most frightening bathroom I had ever imagined. Every second I was sitting there I was convinced that the bolts holding the toilet seat in were going to looses, allowing the toilet, it's contents, and myself to fall through the air to the Earth below...fear does not have to be rational...but somehow I survived! It was a proud woman who made her way back to her seat (I smacked a guy in the head with my boobs as I was coming out of the bathroom...there was really such little room and they are so very large...) and buckled herself back in!

I also have proof that God has a sense of humor...and all this happened in one day! 

I have often said, not entirely joking, that the only way planes could be worse for me is if the crew consisted of giant spiders. No, the crew of my plane was not made up if over sized arachnids, but there was too much irony in the situation not to find it amusing.

Our second plane had little screens that lowered from the ceiling on which they were showing these beautiful nature shows! I didn't have my headphones, but I was watching the shows for the beautiful images and to keep my mind off of the terrible turbulence. I am assuming if I had been privileged enough to hear what the narrator was saying I would have realized that they were shifting topics on this particular documentary...all I know is that one second I was fascinated by the images of underwater volcanoes and running lava under the ocean, and the next second I was staring into the multiple eyes of a huge spider, made larger by the amazing zoom lenses of the camera men. 

It was close enough to count the individual hairs on it's many legs, and even had it not been zoomed in upon to such a disgusting level, it was a huge spider by any standard! I looked away as fast as I could and started giggling, half way between hysterics and genuine amusement that they very thing I had said could make a flight worse for me was happening. Michael laughed himself, and took great delight in narrating the eating and hunting habits of our large arachnid friend until it was again safe for me to watch. Overall, it was highly amusing, and reminds me that God Himself must have a sense of humor. 

I suppose I have rambled enough, and I have several thousand pictures to go through in the next couple of days. I will post some as soon as they are ready.

God bless and thank you for reading!

 

It's Been A Long Time Coming...

 

I am so excited to finally be typing this!!!

Two and a half years ago, exhausted both emotionally and physically, Michael and I packed the car up with the "kids" (which, at that time, consisted of only our three furry children) and left Ohio! We were on our way to adventure and excitement in Idaho...OK, not so much. But "Home is Where the Air Force Sends You", and they sent us to Idaho. So, you make the best of it. (And pray for orders!)

We haven't been home since that cold December morning. I haven't even left the state in the last 2 and a half years, and while Michael has left, neither trip was exactly a vacation. (Once was for his grandfather's funeral and the other was for his deployment.) Members of my family have come out twice, but there is still much of my family that has never met Parker. None of Michael's family has. We haven't seen our oldest niece in over 2 years, and we've never even met our youngest niece yet. It's hard, but it is also the military life, and we have to take the good with the bad. (And there is good, believe it or not.)

But now I can finally say it!!! WE'RE GOING HOME!!! Not for good or anything, but for almost 3 weeks in May! Michael got his leave approved today and I booked the tickets right away! he specifically didn't take leave after coming home from his deployment so that he would be able to ask for longer leave this Spring. We've wanted to go home for so long, and didn't know if we'd be able to make it this year. Michael is testing for Rank and there is a lot going on in the shop this Summer...we just weren't sure it was going to happen. The tickets are bought now though, so short of some emergency, we're going!!!

Before moving, I had never gone for more than a month without seeing my grandparents, now it has been 2 and a half years. I never imagined a time when I would go a year without going to the movies with my sister or that I wouldn't be the one taking my brother out when he turned 21 last winter. It's just so different. Like I said, it is the life, and we take the good with the bad, but I can hope for a day when we are stationed closer to home. I want to see the world and experience other countries and cultures, but while the children are little I would love for them to be closer to their family.

I can always dream, right?

Right now I'll take what I can get, and what I can get is a vacation home with my two favorite guys to see our amazing family and friends and framily!!! I am so excited!!!

God bless and thank you for reading!