Looking Ahead

I know that for many, including me, 2013 won't be much missed.  For me, the year started out with an unsuccessful job search, but the distinct likelihood of a move due to my husband's quick and successful job search.  The question was quickly becoming not whether we'd move from the most stable and loved family home we'd had in our 20-year marriage, but whether that move would take us to Indy (preferred) or "the middle of nowhere Ohio" (as we fondly refer to New Bremen, Ohio).

It was, in a word, hard.  In the span of two weeks in early/mid-April, my son had surgery, we moved out of our home of seven years, and I started a new job (remotely).  All of this while Darrell was already living in Indiana.  But as hard as it all was, every step of the process fell right into place, like a puzzle that had already been planned in advance for us.  It was emotionally difficult, but it all just worked out.  I choose to believe that had to be God's doing, because it certainly was not something we could have accomplished on our own.

I'd love to tell you that we've found replacements for everything that so filled our hearts in Lexington, but that wouldn't be true either.  We've made friends with a family that we quickly bonded with here that I think will last forever.  We've begun making other new friends, including a dear lady I work with and workout with (just really met the rest of her family recently).  We've learned ways to cling to friends in Lexington, like meeting halfway to get my kids and their friends to each other for some weekends, and some of our friends who have already visited us here.  I don't plan on ever letting go of those dear friendships, but those who know me well, know I'm also not the best "phone/long-distance" friend, and for that I can only apologize.

We have found fun things to do.  If anything, we like our new house better, which I didn't think was possible as we considered the move.  We've increased our income significantly with me in a salaried job again, while reducing our long-term expenses and debt by buying a less expensive house (thank you, affordable Indy suburb housing market!).

And I know that what we went through in 2013 was really so much easier than other difficulties some have had.  I have a friend who went through a divorce after a long marriage, an aunt who made it through a liver transplant, other friends who lost dear family members, found out they (or a love one) had cancer, lost a job, and so many other worse things than we experienced in 2013.  For all of you, I pray that 2014 is a much better year!

So, with all that, it's time for us to look forward to 2014.  I don't really make New Year's resolutions.  I have goals, I just don't tend to wait for a new year to start them.  But, there are certainly things I look forward to with 2014, and feel happy to leave behind in 2013.  My hopes and plans for 2014 include:

• Stability in where we live and in jobs.  We have no plans to move for 9 years (long enough to get our son through high school graduation) and pray that both of our jobs are stable for 2014.
• I want to read more in 2014.  That is one of the things that definitely gave way with the hectic year that was 2013.  I realized just today that at least half of the books that I "read" in 2013 were audiobooks.  While not all bad, I want that ratio to be different for 2014, and I want to add in more non-fiction.
• I want to lead and show more love to my children.  I couldn't love them more than I do, but I can better show them my love.  And we have only two and a half years left with our daughter at home full-time to lead and instruct her, and to show her just how much she is loved.  I'm not completely sure how this all looks.  I think it was started for us in 2013 with choosing a church based more on her needs, and with our weekly family Bible studies, but I know that we can do better.
• I want to repriortize on healthy eating for the whole family.  I try to set a good example with what Darrell calls my "nuts and berries" eating, but I need to try even harder to find ways to get us all to eat better.
• I want to run at least one half marathon in 2014.  I went all of 2013 without one, which I think was a first for me since 2009.  I don't plan to let that happen again, at least not unless and until a future health problem prevents me from running at all.
• Darrell and I have decided to tithe in 2014.  It's been a while since we committed 10% of our incomes to giving.  I know that I should trust that it will work out.  Even recently, I've seen the way God takes care of us (giant healthcare increase more than covered by an unexpected raise), but why does it always still scare me?

There, that's it.  Six things to focus on for 2014.  No problem, right?  What are your goals for 2014?  Did you have a rough year in 2013 like we did?

The Road Not Traveled

Do you ever wonder, "What if?"  Our lives are a series of decisions, and some seemingly small ones make such a big difference.  Sometimes the decisions others make have a huge affect on our lives as well.

I probably spend more time than I should thinking about those branches of my path and life that might have been, and wondering what they may have been like.

• What if I had stayed with my boyfriend from home instead of breaking up with him for Darrell?  Would I have spent years as a military wife and would that have appeased my sense of adventure with many moves that way?
• What if Darrell's oncology team had gone with the original plan to give him the chemotherapy combination with a 99% infertility rate?  Would we have spent years trying to get conceive with no success?
• What if we had decided to try for each of our kids at just slightly different times?  I can't imagine not having the two amazing kids I've given my heart to and would lay down my life for at any time.

I could seriously go on like this for ages.  I even made a chart to highlight several of the big decisions and milestones just for the first 10 years of my adult life (from age 18-28):

 

The dotted lines lead to completely different and unknown paths.  And these are just the big events that stand out for me personally.  I have no idea all the ways my life touched others, or even the ways that perhaps I should have helped or touched others and didn't.

God gave us free will, but I also believe that he has a plan for each of us.  That's one of the tougher aspects of Christianity to completely grasp, in my opinion.  Does God help connect the dotted lines back to our planned path when we make the "wrong" decision?  I'm not sure, but I do know that sometimes he has redeemed the decisions in my life that I either should not have made, or that seemed to take me astray at the time.

I worked one job I disliked, in part because for most of the time I commuted an hour and a half each way while pregnant, but we found a way for me to stay home with our daughter for a while, and I'll forever treasure that time as a new mom with her (even though some days were more difficult than anything I've done before or since).  I worked another job I disliked for three years.  Then I started a small business that ultimately failed.  Then Darrell's job kept going downhill, and the only way to fix it all seemed to be moving away from the only place that had truly become home to both of us.  But every step of the way, things fell right into place.  God seemed to be telling us all along that this move was his plan, even if we didn't know why.  It was the first time in my life that I really felt that way, and it has been very comforting.

What about you?  What is your path, and do you ever wonder about the roads you turned away from along the way?

Talk with them a lot. And then talk with them more.

I hesitate to give advice on anything related to raising kids for two big reasons:

1. I've found way too many parenting books, columns, etc. that give conflicting advice.  The main thing I've learned from this is that different tactics work for different families AND kids are not as predictable as we'd like to think.
2. My kids aren't grown yet.  While I doubt that either of my two are going to end up in jail or anything even more drastic, I suspect I have some rebellious years ahead of me.  And I estimate that a good amount of what they turn out to be has little to do with me anyway.  Sure, what Darrell and I do can help make them better or worse, but there are innate qualities they have that I can't take credit for.  Kids from good families can go astray.  Kids from bad families can turn out great.

But, I'm going to go out on a limb on this one.  Talk to your kids - often and openly.  And I am saying this as much to remind myself as to give advice to anyone else.

I was a quiet kid, and still tend to be fairly quiet and need some alone time to function well.  I was so sure that I would have at least one quiet child.  Nope.  I have the kids unafraid to ask for help finding something in a store, unafraid to read aloud in front of their entire class, unafraid to challenge what their own mom and dad say even.  I have the kids with voices that "carry" sometimes in school.  The ones I get asked about their hearing, because they talk loud.  Now, mind you, they get great behvior reports in school, because they don't talk at inappropriate times, they are just plain louder than average when they do talk (which at home seems to be ALL THE TIME).

And they don't seem to mind carrying on two entirely separate conversations with me in the car.  Yes, there are many times when I get to discuss my daughter's friend's latest boyfriend while I also carry on a conversation about Minecraft.  All while they talk over each other and expect frequent input from me.  Do you know how difficult that is for someone who definitely leans towards the introverted side?

But, I try.  I tell my kids they can come to us with anything.  They know they might as well fess up if they've done something wrong because the consequences are SO much higher if they lie.  I handled the birds and the bees discussion with my son, even though I swore it was Darrell's turn with him, because I answered when he asked. 

Have I had to hide in the bathroom on occasion for alone time?  What mom hasn't?  Have I been known to ask (possibly too loudly) them to JUST BE QUIET for a bit?  Sure.  Is my daughter's tendency to talk back in part due to my encouragement to speak her mind?  Perhaps.

I also think lots of family talk and discussion promotes things like a good vocabulary and general intelligence.  They learn things from us.  They learn to be inquisitive and question the world around them.

And let them see you interacting with other adults.  My kids have seen Darrell and I argue.  They've also seen us apologize to each other, kiss, and make up.  We've each apologized to them from time to time as well.  And my kids see that I have a life outside my family.  They see me work, they see me with other friends.

So, we talk.  And talk, and talk...  And I hope that means something to them someday.

Matriarchy of Strong Women

I grew up in a family of strong women.  Yesterday would have been my Papaw's 89th birthday, but he didn't quite live to see 80.  He was perhaps the most kind, sensitive man I've ever met.  I'm blessed that he got to meet both of my children, although he was sickly long before my son was born, and since he passed away so soon after, I don't have a single picture of the two together.

My Papaw cooked and cleaned as much as my Meme, and not just after he retired from the coal mines.  They worked together in the garden.  I have no doubt that Papaw was a strong man, too.  He was a coal miner when that meant a lot of very physical work, and when it was an even more dangerous job.  He was a first generation American, born to immigrant parents from Hungary.  He was a big man, until he grew old.  But, he was also one of the younger children in his family.  A boy who got to finish high school, while his older sisters did not.

My Meme, on the other hand, was first-born.  A girl in a time when boys were still worth more, perhaps, but she was expected to help much more at home, I'm sure.  She had lots of younger sisters and brothers to help take care of, to "borrow" her clothes, etc.  Although her family were not immigrants, she grew up equally poor at the end of the Great Depression.

Meme is small, but feisty.  And what she lacks in physical strength, she seems to have in mental acuity.  She's smart, and she knows how to get her way and get things done.  She's not afraid of hard work, but she doesn't always have to work hard to get her way.  When she talks, people seem to listen.  I think to this day, I may be the only one besides the kids who isn't afraid of her, just a little.  I think kids identify with her because she's closer to their size, and usually willing to play with them, and give them just about anything they want.  But adults take her seriously, and naturally want to please her.

You see, there was never any question growing up who was "in charge".  That would be Meme.  The matriarch now perhaps because she so beautifully represents her generation, but always the matriarch as far back as I can remember as well.

The only way my parents really repeated the pattern is that the oldest daughter married the youngest son.  I always saw my parents' marriage as more of a balance of power.  There were things my mom was in charge of and things my dad was in charge of, and in most ways, I've tried to model my own marriage much more after that compared to my Meme and Papaw's marriage.

And I grew up a girl in a time when the world was a girl's for the taking.  My father let me know that I could be anything a man could, and if anything, he implied that I had more power than a man due to what a man would want from me.  I will never forget the "no boy wants to just be your friend" speeches.  My father had two girls, and I suspect he would have liked a boy, but he didn't let that stop him from doing "boy" things.  He sent me to a gun safety/target shooting class and took me hunting.  He rode a bike alongside me while I trained for track.

But, even in my family, if you really wanted to do or get something, you knew who to ask.  Mom.  Mom was the everyday disciplinarian, even if it was Dad's discipline that we most feared.  Mom was the gatekeeper of going to a friend's house and first dates (she had to meet the boy first).

By the time I was ready to have my own children, I was convinced that any differences between boys and girls were due to what we as a society teach them.  I was at least 50% completely wrong.  Boys and girls are in fact born very different, and I think God gave me one of each to teach me that.  But that's also a topic enough its own story to not get into here.

After years and years of mostly girls (three girls for my Meme and Papaw and two for Mom and Dad), my aunt began a trend of mostly boy children.  Meme is still firmly the matriarch of the family, and there have been glimpses that perhaps my mom will take over that role someday.  But I wonder after that how things will continue.  Although, my own daughter, also firstborn but the only girl granddaughter on both sides of the family, is very strong willed.  I can see her leading her own matriarchy someday, and I'd love to live to see the start of that. 

Four Generations of First-born Girls