The Messy-Mundane Middle
It’s almost the end of March and I’m just gonna say it…this season has been hard! And for those who might be thinking, why do we need to hear your stories of hard, here’s why.
Are you ready for this?
…because you can be living right in the middle of what you wanted, and it can still feel hard.
There, I said it.
And I think some of you may be able to relate.
As many of you know, our story goes like this….we chose retirement. We chose to move away from our friends and family. We chose to start a new business. We chose life together 24/7. We chose to throw out all our dreams and ideas for what this next chapter might look like.
And it’s been hard. Here’s why….
1)-I miss my people. I didn’t have any idea what it would be like to live at a distance from those I love…and there was no way we could know when we planned to retire and move that three of our kids would have babies within months of us having left.
2)-Most of the things we were hoping to enter into have not worked out. Not yet anyway.
3)-Mike’s living way outside of his comfort zone having to do all the things that starting a business requires, after working for the same company for over 30 years. And, he’s also dealing with being a beginner, after knowing his role extremely well in a profession he truly loved. And, there are no more ‘atta boys’ coming his way….they left along with the salary we once enjoyed. That’s new and it’s hard.
4)-As for me, I often feel lonely and full of fear. I’m not sure who my people are yet and I know it is going to take time. (All great relationships do!) Our budget has shrunk to a third of what we had to live on before and we are living in the middle, til full retirement kicks in and that feels scary.
But here’s the other side of that coin —- it’s also been great in a SO MANY other ways! Things like, being together, without a schedule to keep.
Doing projects we are excited about.
Living in a place with far more sunny days.
Enjoying being outside more than we did in Washington .
Trying out new places to eat.
Learning how to find our way around a new city. And so much more!
And the truth is, at the same time, it’s also a whole lot of ordinary. There are still bills to pay, groceries to purchase, meals to cook, laundry to do, arguments to be had, disappointments to wrestle with, with a heap of discouragements to lay before God — day after day.
And, we’re still learning. We’re kinda tired and feel a little beat up, but we’re hanging in there.
One of the things that I’ve noticed, especially in this season, is how quick we are to try to “fix”. Do you know what I mean? Like begin to question everything!
——Did we move outside of God’s desire for us?
——Was it the best decision to make such a major change in the midst of so many other major changes.
——Did we misunderstand God’s invitation?
These are a few of the questions that have rolled about in our minds, one more than one occasion.
We recently had one of those “come to Jesus” conversations, (I know you know what I’m talking about!) …and this is how it usually goes for us. After holding onto whatever it is that’s making me uncomfortable for days, I finally muster up enough courage to be vulnerable and let Mike in on what’s happening in me. This often (ok almost always), results in an onslaught of tears from me and sometimes a few from him too—-even if he won’t admit it :)
Anyway, on this day, I shared the expectations I had of him, that he wasn’t meeting——(Newsflash: unspoken expectations are almost always, deadly!!) —-along with a bunch of my frustration, anxiety, sadness and throw in whatever other messy emotive you can think of.
We started this conversation in the car on our way home from Home Depot and sat in the driveway for at least another half an hour hashing it out. I’m sure our neighbors were wondering what the heck we were doing. (I actually thought if any of them asked, I’d probably burst into tears and say, “We were fighting out our sadness out together”! haha)
And, here’s what ended up not happening…
First of all, nothing got settled. Not one thing was “fixed”.
No resolutions were made. No set in stone ideas of how to fix my dilemmas or my suffering heart.
But here’s what did happen… I was no longer alone in it. No longer giving it power to have free reign in my heart and mind and turn into something that it isn’t. No more wrestling alone. No more carrying the weight of it all by myself. Now I had it all laid out for him to see…..all the messy, snotty bits of it laid bare. (Believe me, it wasn’t pretty)
And, just like I said earlier, we are in the middle of something we chose. I can’t believe how I continue to be surprised at the fact that we can be living right in the middle of our desires and longings and it can still be hard.
But think about it, this isn’t new or crazy thinking, just ask any new parent who wanted to start a family! The joy of having co-created with God in making a human transcends so much
——-AND, is SUPER HARD!
Believe me, just ask them and you’ll find out they’re:
*getting little, to no sleep
*unsure about how to meet this little human’s needs, often questioning, “am I doing this right?”
*feeling lonely and isolated
*social life has shrunk and most moments and hours are filled with whatever this tiny human needs in order to flourish… simply and not cry:)
It’s both—-It’s amazing, AND the hardest thing you’ll ever do.
Or ask a student who’s gone away to college to get their degree.
*There’s homework. Sometimes a lot of it and the late nights they were dreaming of, away from the confines of family of origin (FREEDOM), turn into sitting alone at your desk til wee hours in the morning. Not glamorous at all.
*And, new relationships. The idea of making new friends that would probably go with you into the rest of adulthood——not so easy to just fall into. It takes time and work to create relationships with any depth to them.
*Also that family you were excited to start fresh away from….well, you actually miss them.
But would you trade it? Mostly ‘no’. (Haha, there are the few times that you end up thinking, ‘what have we gotten ourselves into?’:) And honestly, we have an uncanny ability to romanticize anything we would call an adventure. It sounds liberating and fun and exciting, and the truth is, it is!!
And, it’s scary and lonely at times.
So this is my life right now. I wouldn’t trade it and I don’t think we made a mistake.
We’ve shrunk our bank account, the size of our home and the amount of close relationships and there are so many things I’m learning about myself, my marriage and my God. Lessons that my comfortable life in Washington didn’t afford me, along with so many more days of sunshine, which honestly helps makes everything a little easier to deal with. :)
[Seriously, I had no idea how sun deprived I was until I got here and realized there are actually people who live in places where there is blue sky every single day!]
Here’s the thing, as I finish writing this, we have had dinner with two new couples in the last week. Are they our best friends here? No. Are they going to become dear to us? Probably….maybe…I don’t know. But here’s what I do know, there’s a reason that God invites us to only take one day at a time, more than that is too much and the load becomes far too heavy for our limited bodies to carry.
For this I’m grateful.
I’m reminded of the words of my friend Ken Churchill….this day! This is the only day I need to spend any amount of energy on, and I get to enter into the space of remaining watchful as I sit in the ‘messy and mundane middle’.
Peace.
xo