for the most part, i've been trying really hard to keep this ship sailing. from the moment that i walked out the door in la grange, i have been very close to the edge. i've wanted to bawl my eyes out, stomp my feet, pound my fists, move my stuff back into my house and take back my life... but it's hard to really embrace that when you KNOW that you are where God wants you. i am also very aware that throwing that tantrum wouldn't do a bit of good.
side bar: i love a lot of things about our new life. i know that God has huge plans for us. but for the most part, the past two years have been really hard. (man, i sound like a broken record!) i also know that this is part of our story. going backwards is not an option.
and so i choose to embrace the present. it is a choice. some days i am better at it than others.
today... not so much.
on friday nights, i have been going to bed with a pit in my stomach. scott has been in class for the past 8 weekends. i know that i am on my own. the kids sense it and each and every friday night has been a bad night for sleeping in our house. this week was no different. each of my girls was up multiple times in the night last night... e had bad dreams, d was coughing and couldn't find her soosie, p needed to nurse an extra time. and so on saturday morning, this momma was tired. after p's early morning feeding, i willed everyone to sleep in late. but that didn't happen. in fact, the opposite happened. each girlie was wide awake and ready to go exceptionally early. and because each of them had not slept well, they were all exceptionally cranky. including me.
we went through our saturday morning ritual, with me trying to muster a smile and turn this day around. we went on our regular saturday morning trip to the doughnut shop (with d whining, e angry because d was bugging her (no pun intended), and p crying to get out of her car seat. it was a mess. again, i willed everyone to just get it together and found myself watching the clock until nap time.
they continued to fight all morning. e and d just couldn't get along and kept exchanging mean remarks to one another. p didn't take a good morning nap, and momma was trying desperately to clean the house for company on sunday. lunchtime wasn't any better... there were crying babes all over the place. one didn't like their lunch. one spilled their drink. one wanted to be held. i was barely hanging on. scott called at his lunch break and i tried my best to put on my happy face... " everything's fine here, honey. how are you holding up?"... very much aware that none of this is any sort of picnic for him (but i'm also pretty certain they won't be calling out my name at the academy awards this year for best actress!).
nap time came and i got the two little babes to bed and e playing with barbies in her room. after finishing some cleaning, i sat down on the couch to breathe. i knew that if the babes took an "average" nap, i would have about 20 minutes to regroup. not really as much time as i thought i needed, but it would have to do. almost immediately, p began to scream and d was shouting for me to come get her. e was already out of her "rest" and playing at the table. not quite what i was going for...
i decided to just load everyone up and head out to the grocery store. i knew that it was in our future, and now was just as good a time as any (although it would have been nice to not need to go at all). here is where i made a decision that i would soon regret...
i decided to take the back roads to the grocery store instead of the highway. i have done this once before and saw a neighborhood that i wanted to check out. today, something went awry. we headed in the direction that i knew, but my navigation system went blank. literally blank. it showed the arrow indicating our car, but it was not on a single road. it was just moving along on a blank white screen. hmmm... i thought it might be the rain interfering with the satellite system. that's happened before and restored itself in a matter of minutes, so i wasn't too worried. but it didn't restore itself. an hour later, almost out of gas, we were totally lost in the middle of horse country. i didn't even know that there was horse country. that is how lost we were. i decided to try my cellular navigation system. but something was wrong with that too. it felt like we were caught in the middle of the bermuda triangle... you know, with horses instead of sharks.
and so there i was, minutes before my gas light was about to turn on, with three babes in my car. lost. this momma pulled to the side of the road, tried a few more attempts at getting technology to work to my advantage and then this momma put her head down on the steering wheel and cried her eyes out. i know it wasn't in the best interest of my girls. but i had reached the end of my rope. this tired, lost momma, trying her best at holding it together just one more day, couldn't do it anymore.
now i don't know how we managed to get back on track, but somehow we did. after pulling myself together, apologising to my girlies (who were silent in the back of the car) we found our way. a gas station appeared out of nowhere (in the nick of time), we got directions, and we headed to whole foods. and somehow a situation that was headed way off track, turned itself around.
the grocery trip wasn't our finest. d dropped a glass jar of baby food on the floor, shattering it and spilling food all over her pants. (yes, that call for "clean up in aisle nine" was for me.) but we made it... in spite of the fact that it was busier than Christmas eve. we loaded up the car, each girl with a treat in hand (for enduring their momma's melt down and grocery trip to boot).
we took the highway home (the way i knew). as i exited the highway, i looked up into the sky. right before me was the most magnificent rainbow. it stretched straight up into the sky without an ache and ended behind the jack-in-the-box restaurant. and this momma beamed at my brilliant sign from God, right into the jack-in-the-box, proclaiming that God was with me.
do you remember that rainbow i saw a while back in chicago?
do you remember that chat that i had with my sweet Jesus and blogged about here and here?
while in that moment as my eyes delighted in the rainbow, those memories and those promises came flooding back. the God of my life is with us on this great big journey. i have known this from the beginning, but at each turn when my very human brain begins to doubt, that wonderful Father of mine just beams down on me and gives me the encouragement that i need.
and as i rounded the corner to our house, certain that i could make it another two hours until daddy was expected to arrive home, praising God for knowing me so well and meeting my needs (in spit of how complicated my needs might be)... i saw my hubby's car in the driveway. apparently, class had let out way early and he had been texting me while i was in the grocery store.
and my heart let out a hallelujah, to the God that knows me, loves me, and exceeds my expectations!
and then a few hours later, i revisited that initial question... why is it that my friend (and probably quite a few others are under a total different understanding of my head space... how have i continued to convince people that i've got "move to california" taken care of a wrapped with a bow?
i think it is because i am very aware that my "difficult" comes in the midst of a lot of peoples "difficult"... and i'll be writing more about that soon.
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