The rest of my life...

Well as of yesterday we are ready to roll out. We have cleaned up our financial mess to the best of our ability... and we met with the recruiter and it looks like we may know something by next week. I have been saying that since January but the recruiter assured me "hell or high water" and I am going to take him at his word until he teaches me not to. I am ready. So ready... like I am falling apart more and more by the minute. I can dance for only so long before I realize that my heart is still hurting and I am still here where it is obvious I no longer belong.

So I ponder what will I miss... and there is a very simple answer. My friends. The ones that over the last couple of months have pushed, pulled, tugged and towed me through the hardest season of my life. My inlaws... and their ability to keep the kids for days on end for Ande and I to work on our marriage, and just enjoy each other. My mother, my brother, and my sister in law... well because they are family and familiar and well... just because I will miss them. I will miss the mountains that have looked down on me through this season. With their infinite wisdom of time and patience... and erosion. I do love these mountains. I love the smell of the Smoky Mtn Nat'l Park in the fall 5 miles in with no one around. I will miss the rivers and streams... oh and the rocks. Mountain Laurel...

We don't even know where we are heading so there is nothing to really look forward to except knowing it won't be here. I look forward to putting country decorating to a rest. I will take some of my favorite pieces, antiques... that sort of thing but I would like to commit to myself that I will never again own a plaid couch. Really. I have spent this evening perusing Pottery Barn and Bed Bath & Beyond for ideas and I am really liking sea glass colors... teals, sea greens... whites, lots of whites. Who knows... we still do have 2 hair dogs and 3 kids. I do know that we aren't taking what we have even if I have to sit in camping chairs. I think that will motivate Ande to take me to the furniture store.

I am mentally preparing. Looking around at what will go and what won't. Ande and I have very different philosophies. I look at this as on opportunity to really down size and to get to the place that the movers aren't going to laugh at us when they pull up. Less is more. Ande won't part with anything... which sometimes is a good thing except when it has to be packed and moved. Books... my God, we have so many books. We don't need so many books. Really... who needs so many books?

I just want a fresh home to decorate, a new area to learn. The opportunity to get involved again... to get back into the game of life and really enjoy the next few years of my kids and my husband. I mentioned that I would like to go back to school and Ande told me if he was me he wouldn't. Just enjoy life, being a mom a little longer, and he said what he wants me to be is our activities coordinator. That's a title I can live with. I want to find my desire to keep a tidy house again. I want to be excited when I wake up and slap worn out when it's time to close my eyes for the day. I want to remember every laugh, every smile and remember the blessing that God have given me, the amount of time He has given to me as a gift with my kids. I want to take them exploring new areas and cultures... and meet new people.

I have held it together here since the crisis and I just don't know how much longer I can hold on. I don't like this me. This desperate, depressed, drinking to ease the tension me. Really, I don't enjoy her at all.

There will be no more competition to keep up with everyone. We have had it all... own our business, had money, built houses, had the cars and it left us more empty than when we lived in the small house and had to stretch for everything we had. I look forward to not having that drive. To knowing that there is a set amount of money every month... a set amount of days off. There will be some routine in our lives and I truly believe that is going to save us all. I look forward to the business being done and it not taking up our thinking capacity. I look forward to just enjoying a simple life in a sea of other wives in the same boat as me.

It's just a total 180 from where we are right now. The security, the routine, the simpleness of it. We hated it all 11 years ago... now we look back and realize we were idiots and should have just rode the train until the end. Well, we have wisdom we didn't have then, we have chased every one of our dreams... and find ourselves right back where we started, desiring nothing more than we had when we started. But along the way, along the way, we found ourselves, each other and have fallen in love with these three kids. There is an appreciation now... a humility that only comes when you watch it all slip away and there is nothing you can do about it.

I will miss this house... and my kitchen. I thought I would cook for my grandkids in this kitchen... but it wasn't God's plan. I have enjoyed the years here... it's been a great place of getting to know myself... getting healing for my past... falling in love all over again. Allowing God to have His way... but, now it's time to move on. I am ready, Father, I am so ready.