My beautiful husband.
I'm sitting here crying my eyes out because P has just left again. I know it's ridiculous and I know that this is what our lives are like now with him working in Arizona, but it's an absolute killer. I know he doesn't want to go and I know that our lives depend on him going and so I try, really try not to cry, but I Just. Can't. Help it. I went from working wife with a working man to stay-at-home-wife with a traveling husband overnight. He is gone every other week and it sucks. I know I should be grateful that he has such a wonderful position that allows us to live here in Michigan and I am, I swear I am.... I am trying to be. But being left every other week is so incredibly hard.
This past two months has seen a lot of change for us. I have wanted to write and tell you what has been happening, but every time I started I just couldn't find the words. Or I found the words and knew they were either too little or too much to describe what was going on. We have spent seven weeks in our new house. The first week just me and K as P had to fly out the day after our moving van was unloaded. So as soon as the boxes were off, we drove to Chicago and put him on a plane. Then we picked him up a week later.
Let me outline how that trip looks. Load both dog beds and crates into back of Edge, load dogs on top. Don't forget food and meds for Petey! Load luggage for our overnight stay(and for the first four weeks of life in Michigan we had NO washer and dryer so this also included ALL of our laundry. Each time we went to Chicago.) laundry hamper, K's music for night time and toys and drawing stuff for the ride down. Load child and two parents, make sure house is locked and zoom to the city. When I would go get him the scenario was the same except that I did it all by myself. It was frenetic and my car STILL looks like we live in it. I'm not kidding. I get sympathetic looks at the grocery store. They think I'm homeless. The fact that I show up in sweat pants, a hole-ridden down jacket and ratty snow boots does not help this image. Nor does a total lack of makeup, hair thrown up in a messy bun and the ragged look on my face.
Anyway, that scene plays out twice during a five day span every other week. Until today as P has been blessed with the use of someone else's vehicle as K has school tomorrow and I can't take him. The last week of January and the first week in February, K and I went with P to AZ. It was too soon and I wasn't yet settled here so it felt all wrong, but K enjoyed herself and it was great not to be separated by 3000 miles of America from my husband. It was good to see my family too as I will not get much opportunity to do that now that we live here. And I miss them like crazy.
During all of this crazy I am attempting to homeschool my daughter completely off the cuff as I wasn't expecting it this early in our lives and I have no curriculum or structure to work with. My mom valiantly tries to help me out and schools K in AZ to get the ball rolling while I sleep away the terrible fatigue that has finally caught up with me after all the drama we have been living since the beginning of December.
At our new house in MI we are experiencing some pest problems, giant hornets and their larva as well as a mouse who insists on pooping on my couch, but is never around when I let the cats come up to hunt. Not to mention the unpacking business is going quite slowly as we try to figure out how to arrange our lives for the next bit of forever. What to keep and what to kick.
Week before last P was in AZ and K and I were battling through another day of home schooling, when she turns to me and says "you're just not a fun teacher mom." I know this, I can't figure out how to change it though as I have zero formal training and currently a decided lack of energy and patience. I tell her I'm sorry and she say "it's ok, but I really miss school." That did it. I asked if she would like to go back, she said yes. The next day I tell P and we agree that when he gets back we will enroll her in public school. I didn't have to do much soul searching on this one. My daughter has been through enough and now she doesn't even have the luxury of having friends to hang out with and be social. This is not how I want home schooling to go, this situation was thrust upon me before I was ready, yet I still feel like I've failed somehow as a mother. We put her in school this past Friday. She came home happier than I have seen her in weeks. I don't regret our decision. But it still makes me a little sad. Ah well, maybe further down the line when we are actually settled and our lives have some sort of rhythm.
I need rhythm. I thrive on structure. I have neither right now. But I'm reaching for it. We all are as a family. K has her school. P's work/travel schedule is getting into a pattern of normalcy. I will now have my daytimes free to go back to being productive. Keeping the house clean, going to yoga and water aerobics, knitting, reading. I haven't had a single second alone, truly alone, since November. I will have my first tomorrow after I drop off K. I have NO idea what I will do with it. Cry? It's a distinct possibility as I hate loneliness. But it's more likely that I'll go to Yoga and breath deeply; straighten my spine and remember who I am. I am not this weak girl who is currently being crushed under the weight of the crazy that has been our lives these past few months. I am the woman who gets back up. Each time I get knocked down, no matter how comfortable and safe that ground seems.....
I. Get. Back. Up. Under no circumstances am I going to let that be changed now. Tomorrow I'm going to crawl out of this misery and set things in order. Not tonight though. Tonight I'm going to get into my pajamas and warm up leftovers, eat a MASSIVE bowl of rainbow sherbet and watch a movie with my daughter. Because tonight I am a woman missing her husband and I just have to come to grips with this new and frequent truth in my life before moving on to the next big thing.
I hope that wherever you are, you are warm and happy and safe.
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