Waiting for The Next Best Thing (Part 2)

We arrived home after that glorious week, and were promptly dumped straight back into real life. Instead of a nice s-l-o-w immersion, we were greeted by a messy apartment (which was boxed up for moving the NEXT week), and four kids that weren't into the whole concept of, "Hey, sitting down and being quiet is the most funnest thing to do in the whole wide world!!" ...Yeah, not so much.

That beautiful bottle of wine got packed in with all the kitchen stuff.  I remember wrapping the bright pink, transparent goodness in brown paper before setting it in the laundry basket that would be its carriage to a new and bigger home.  Hoorah!  We were finally moving out of family housing at U of M and into a house, with a yard, and a fence, and a garage, and a neighborhood.  I almost felt like a grown-up.

Once we were settled into the house (which really means the beds were up, and we could find the toothpaste), I thought to myself, "This here is cause for celebration!  How about that bottle of wine?"  But it was too close in time.  We needed to save it for something special...down the road.  So, I unpacked the wine and set it up on top of the microwave so that we would remember we had it. (Like I could really forget we had a bottle of wine we're supposed to drink.  Seriously.)

August arrived and I got a part-time job co-leading the kids program at our church.  I hadn't worked outside of the house since our first child was born.  I remember feeling so excited that adults wanted to be around me...that they recognized an ability set of mine that didn't revolve around poop and laundry. (Shocking, I know.)  Add to that the slight increase in spending money per month, and we had something to celebrate! Yes? ...No.  We were too busy.  Having a job was really hard, especially while still teaching 2 of my 4 kids at home.  No celebration, just survival.

Then came October.  The month of doom.  I had marked the date on the calendar, "Adam hears back about the grant".  We counted down the days, praying that it would fund. That we could stay in Ann Arbor...that we could actually start saving for a home of our own...that we could stop relying on federal and family assistance to make ends meet.  Something to show us that the past seven years of our lives wouldn't be counted as lost.

*sigh*

I think if we had opened that bottle of wine in October, we wouldn't have tasted the summer in it at all. It still would have had its sparkly pink appeal, but it would have been a bitter reminder that the beauty of that week away was just that, a lone week in an ocean of months and months of striving and failing. Our hearts were so heavy with grief.  Even now, looking back from over a year of healing, I write all of this, and that hopelessness is trying to seep back in and steal today's joy.  Yikes. Moving on...

Right after Thanksgiving, we found out I was pregnant with our fifth child.  We had talked about the possibility of having more kids down the road, when things were secure, and we had more space and more income. But this -now- was not our plan. There were tears and worries.  I cried for at least an hour one evening over the absolute impossibility of adding the cost of diapers to our already strapped monthly budget. I was pregnant and hormonal...it was rough.  But eventually we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and carried on into winter. Without wine.

During those cold and gloomy months, we made some tough decisions.  After spending over a decade of his life studying and working in science, Adam decided to leave it behind for the sake of our family. Again, more tears and angst, and again...more bootstraps.  There were a whole lot of mouths to feed, cause I was eating ...a lot (me and the growing boys around our table), and so on we went.

In February, Adam interviewed for a data management position in a health analytics company.  I remember that morning we sent him out the door, dressed in the only jacket and tie he owned...the same one he wore to defend his dissertation.  The sun was so bright and warm, and even though winter was still looming over us -ready to bite with more storm and bitter fury- it was the most hopeful I had felt in months. The interview went well.  The second interview went even better, and ended in an offer.

We had reason to celebrate!
But I was still pregnant. *oh bother*

Slowly but surely, the bottle of wine on the microwave became more and more buried; by bills, jars, cards, legos, and all things that needed a home up off the counter.  After a few months of being hidden, I think that both Adam and I had forgotten there was a celebration to be had.

There was a hot summer and a big belly, then there was August.  And Sam.  He was a week late, but cooked to perfection. Grandparents came quickly north to meet this beautiful new addition.

He was not our plan. 

But we could not have planned so well as this. 

Certainly, this was our best reason to celebrate yet.  A beautiful, healthy boy. An easy birth, and four big sibs who were thrilled beyond reason to have this little guy join our family.  But by now, that bottle of wine was stuffed so far under our tiredness and the noise of a screaming baby, it didn't even cross our minds.  

There have been so many reasons to celebrate since his birth last August: two weddings, major holidays, birthdays, successful work days, great days of parenting and loving and living.  

Finally, on Friday night, we noticed the top of the bottle peeking out from behind the kitchen chaos.  Adam suggested that now was as good a time as any. We had gotten the kids to bed...and any parent would know THAT is worth celebrating.  So I dusted off the bottle, and we opened it up.  And this is what we saw--

The beautiful transparent pink had turned into a murky, ugly, dark brown.  We had waited so long for the next best thing to celebrate, that our wine had lost some of what had made it our favorite in the first place. It still had the taste of country-picked strawberries, but it had acquired a backwards bitterness that was not originally there.  All that waiting...all those excuses...that, and the fact that I had something precious and didn't protect it from the one thing that would destroy it even faster than time: sunlight.

As we sat there drinking it in the darkness of our finally quiet house, we couldn't actually see the wine, so I don't think our celebration was dampened one bit.  In fact, I can say for certain that it was a perfect ending to the day.  But it got me thinking...

How often am I unwilling to celebrate a victory, or a blessing, or a day well lived because I'm waiting for the next best thing?  How often do I allow discontentment to seep into my joy and turn it murky and brown, leaving me with a bitter aftertaste instead of sweet rest?

Today was long, full of sick kids, and generally un-enjoyable.  But I spent that time in my warm home, with my beautiful family that grows more beautiful each moment. I have one glass of wine left in that bottle, and I don't intend to leave it there any longer.  

Here's to celebrating the blessings of today.

Waiting for The Next Best Thing (Part 1)

First things first.  I have to be transparent and tell you that it turns out I kinda lied in my last post.
It wasn't my fault.  That blame goes to my tradition breaking husband, Adam..

On the way home from picking him up from work, then stopping at Costco, then stopping at Walgreens for a prescription, with five tired, hungry kids in the car...my man quietly states that he has one more place to stop. So he turns the car away from home and drives back into town.  Through the evening traffic, with definite purpose.

A while back, Adam had received a gift certificate for his bike commuting awesomeness and had saved that sucker for a snowy day.  He parked the car, and ran in to the shop behind us.  The kids in the back are craning their necks and wondering why we've stopped *again*, but I know.  The waiting is almost unbearable. So. Excited.

He walks back out a few minutes later and hands me a creation of beauty.  Steaming, frothy, sugary...and all mine. Let me tell you friends, that was the best cup of coffee. Ever.  Happy Valentine's Day to me.

Okay, got that off my chest.

Now on to the meaty stuff that will be the subject of this post and the next: Waiting.

This is a story about a bottle of wine.  (Sort-of.)

To tell this story properly, I need to back up a few years.  A long, long time ago, when we were but newly married young parents with stars in our eyes, we came to the University of Michigan so that Adam could pursue a PhD in biosciences.  After four years of hard work and sacrifice, he got his degree in immunology and moved on to a post-doctoral position that we hoped would lead to a faculty position down the road. Key words being, "we hoped."

In 2012, two years into this post-doc, we celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary.  After a decade of marriage and four kids, we felt some time away was in order.  Adam tried to make plans in secret, but since I do our finances each month -once the check cleared for the cabin reservation- the cat was out of the bag. Poor guy.  He really tried.  We were going back to where it all began: the honeymoon cabin in Cook Forest, PA. *sigh*

The weeks leading up to this break were some of the most stressful of our marriage lives.  Adam was in the middle of writing a grant that, if it were to fund, would allow him that path to success that we had been praying for.  There was so much sickness and warfare in our lives during that time that -even looking back- I'm amazed that we came out whole. And there was my best friend in the middle of it, trying desperately to battle through, while still producing his best writing ever, knowing that he must finish by the 10th of June so that we could LEAVE.  No pressure. *eye twitch*

But he did finish.  And we did leave.  Our children happily settled in with their grandparents, we drove off into the Allegheny mountains, and back in time.

It was a glorious week.  Adam was still sick for the first few days, unable to enjoy food...but such a trooper. In spite of his ailments, we canoed, hiked, and did all the things that we remembered loving on our first adventure together.  But this time we did it with a little life tucked under our belts, and so much more gratitude for the beauty and preciousness of silence and rest.

At the end of the week, on our way out of the forest, we stopped by a local winery.  We tasted many, and bought a few.  Our favorite of which was a strawberry wine.  We'll save this, we promised, for a celebration...a special occasion.  

And so, we tucked it away.

Say it with Dishes

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Once the kids were in bed this evening I turned my tired gaze towards my equally exhausted husband and announced that I had done absolutely nothing for him.  No card. Nothing.

He kind of stared at me for a moment, and I honestly wasn't sure whether he had heard me or not, because after swimming in a few seconds of silence, he went on as if I hadn't said anything.  

I can't tell you what his silence meant (11 years of marriage only allows for so much clairvoyance)...but I can tell you historically how we roll.  Most birthdays and holidays are met with little fanfare between the two of us.  We wake up, wish each other happy things and then go about the day.  No gifts, and usually no cards. That's it.

Now, before you start to judge...  We give our kids gifts.  They aren't all lying around the tree on Christmas morning sobbing for lack of celebration, and their birthdays are loads of fun.  I feel very blessed to be able to love on my kids with a gift or two.

But us grown-ups?  Not so much.

Earlier in our marriage, we tried a lot harder to give just the right gifts.  Our first Christmas together was delightful. My husband was still in college, and I was working a job with Americorps (i.e. volunteering with a W2).  That year I made a total of 9,000 dollars.  I look back at the ledger I kept that year, and every single month we went further into debt.  The misguided gift giving at Christmas didn't help our cause.  I received a pair of hiking boots, and he got two strange containers in which to organize his fly tying materials.  One gift, a hope of activities done together, and the other a not-so-subtle hint that his hobby was taking over the guest room and must be.contained. (There, I said it. I totally didn't realize at the time that I was being so subversive.  Oh well...live and learn.)  We both received our gifts gracefully, but I think that both of us wondered if we would get better at it.

Once children came along, the finance of gift giving certainly didn't get any easier...and it was met with the reality of very little spare time in which to shop.  So really, since 2004... 

We are odd birds.  I know.  We watch couples around us who are extravagant gift givers, and can't wrap our heads around it, because it's just so foreign to us.  Would we give each other more if we had the funds or the time?  

I don't really know.

But this is where we are now, and we've come to a realization together:  

Every single day we give each other gifts.

-I wake up earlier with a baby one morning and make sure his cup of coffee is waiting when he comes down. 

-He makes himself breakfast before work the next day, but adds an extra 2 eggs to the pan so that he can make me some as well...then gives me the best ones because he knows that I'll appreciate it.

-He does the dishes, and pulls in every single mobile child to help with the job, while I sit on the couch and just breathe.  Literally, just breathe. *heaven*

-He asks to go out with the guys, and I say yes.  All the time, as often as I possibly can, I say yes.

-After a long day with the kids, he'll push me out the door with a few bucks and make sure I go to a coffee shop and take a few moments to just breathe. And drink coffee. *heaven bathed in coffee*

I could keep going, but I think you get the picture.  

Every morning when we wake up, we have the opportunity to put someone else's needs and desires before our own.   To hold our tongue when we're frustrated. To give someone the benefit of the doubt. To clean up someone else's mess without complaining. To actually listen to their desires and musings that hold no interest for us, whatsoever. To use our words to encourage and build them up over, and over, and over... To come alongside them in every way possible, sharing their burdens and joys alike.

Tomorrow when I wake up, there will be no great hurrah over the "day of love."  I will share my day with a wonderful man, who will give to me all that he can of himself, just like he did today.  That is a wonderful gift.