Defining Moments

Well, I had a post typed out about our very first Matco Tool Expo to Las Vegas, but then I read it and it sounded rather depressing. And, I wasn’t entirely sure if I was ready to share what I had written with other people. So, I typed it up, and it sat, unpublished, in my list of blog posts. I reread it a couple times and decided that is where it will stay.

I decided to take a more positive approach on it and post this one instead.

When Steve got out of the military, I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t want it to happen, and I can’t really explain why. I’m sure people think I’m absolutely crazy for not being completely overjoyed that my husband will not have to go into a warzone, and that I will never have to be separated from him for 7 months while he’s there again. But there’s more to it than that. And after him being done with the Marine Corps for over a year now, I’m still not ready for it. I’m still not adjusting. I’m still not sure that right here, right now, is where I am supposed to be. But, chances are, if you have been reading my blog, you already gathered that from past blog posts.

When I got home, I had been talking to my sister-in-law (also a Marine wife), I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, or even how it started. But I do know, that she, too, apparently had some apprehensions about leaving the Marine Corps behind, and I remember her saying that there was something that happened a few months after the start of their civilian life that reassured her that they were right where they needed to be. I have no idea what that “defining moment” was for her, nor do I need to know. But it gave me hope. That some day I would have a “moment” that would help me realize that leaving the Marine Corps behind wasn’t as scary or as difficult as I had made it to be.

I think I’m still waiting for that moment, although the desire to be back in the military lifestyle is getting less and less prominent.

That being said, for a lot of the Tool Expo in Las Vegas, I felt the very same way. Like I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I felt very out of place due to various reasons that were completely out of control, but, there was one moment. A moment where I finally felt like I was right where I was supposed to be, when I was supposed to be there. A moment where someone said something to me that reassured me that I was doing what I should be doing in that moment. A moment that made me feel whole, and made me feel good about myself. I hadn’t had a moment like that in a long time. And it was nice to have a little reassurance that I am on the right path.

Now, I’m no dummy. I know that if Steve was still in the Marine Corps, he wouldn’t be selling Matco tools, and we wouldn’t be at the Matco Tool Expo in Vegas where I had that “moment”. But is it my “defining moment” that is going to convince me that I am where I need to be, and that I can finally let go of the Marine Corps and never look back? I don’t think so. Unfortunately. But at least it’s a start.  

Airplane Adventures, Stupidity, and a Hint of Sarcasm

I have come to the very clear and positive solution that I hate to travel. Scratch that--I love to travel. I hate to travel on airplanes. I love driving to different states. I love seeing different places. But at this point, if I were ever to decide to travel to Europe, I think I would rather take a canoe than an airplane.

Between Steve and I, we have horror stories of flying. You name it, it's happened. Neither of us can fly together or separately without some kind of mishap.

Many of these circumstance has to do largely with the stupidity of others. Excuse me for being blunt, but it's true.

When Steve left for boot camp, he flew out of Fargo, with a layover in Denver, and a final destination of San Diego. Upon arrival in Denver, he found his gate, except he missed a memo about the gate change. Now, you may be thinking, "How is that someone else's stupidity?" Well, stay tuned. When I said "missed the memo", what I REALLY mean is he verified that he was at the correct gate by verifying that the flight number on his ticket matched the flight number on the big screen at the gate. And it did. And it continued to match his flight number and destination until he tried to board when they FINALLY gave him the memo that his flight was at a different gate. And had already left.  This meant that he had to go from Denver to San Francisco, THEN to San Diego--and was "late" for boot camp. The military isn't fond of "late".

Fast forward to a couple Januarys later. I decided to fly out and see him before he deployed. Being "comfortable" with flying, I decided to do a connecting flight so I could land closer to where Steve was. I had done this before, and usually connected through Charlotte, NC--a very lovely airport. Unfortunately, there were no return flights through Charlotte-only Atlanta. Those of you that travel frequently are probably laughing your asses off right now.

The flight there went completely flawlessly. And in my mind, I thought, "Could it be? Could it be that I have FINALLY escaped the curse of flying inconveniences?!" OF COURSE NOT! The return flight, I found myself stuck at OAJ (Jacksonville, North Carolina airport) because there was "bad weather" in Atlanta. Atlanta was grounded for something like 4-5 hours. Again, those of you that are experienced with traveling are now laughing even harder--perhaps you fell out of your chair even!

Let me clear this up for those of you wondering why this whole situation is so funny. My mother-in-law once said/heard and passed to me, "Before you go to heaven, you must first pass through Atlanta". I certainly hope this isn't true since Atlanta would more likely be somewhere they would send you to prepare you for hell. It seems like EVERY PLANE IN THE COUNTRY goes through Atlanta (or Denver, but I've already informed you of THEIR abilities).

Once again, you are probably thinking "It was a delay due to weather, not someone else's fault". Stick with me again on this one. After an additional 3-4 hours at OAJ, and a 1 hour flight, I landed in Atlanta. We deplaned on the tarmac because EVERY plane in the country was there since they all have to go through there and the airport had been grounded for 5 hours. We were then directed through a pathway (it was raining, for the record) which eventually led to an emergency exit next to a restroom or something.

I quickly found my next gate so I could sit and wait for my further delayed flight (since now every plane in America is lined up to take OFF from Atlanta). Five additional hours, and three gate changes later, I finally boarded my plane to Minneapolis--at midnight. I was supposed to ARRIVE at midnight.

I got to Minneapolis where my poor parents had to stay with a friend to try to get some sleep, while remaining "on call" to come get me whenever the airlines decided it was my turn to go home. As I stood at baggage claim, dead tired, I wondered how I was ever going to make it through work the next day. I stood in baggage claim and watched bag after bag be taken from the carousel. And waited and waited, when there were only 2 bags left on the carousel, I realized that mine wasn't there and wasn't coming.

I went to the baggage claim lady in tears and she politely informed me that my bags hadn't left Jacksonville. At this point, I should have just laughed, but I didn't...I was not amused. Let me explain something here...

I'm guessing no one, other than my husband, that is reading this has been to OAJ. So here it is. There are 3 gates. Three. Gates. Every gate is in the SAME ROOM. If I am sitting in Gate 3 I will STILL know when my flight is leaving from Gate 1. Honestly, if I was in the RESTROOM I would know. This "gate room" is about 30 yards from where I gave the nice, but apparently incompetent, lady my bags. During the 4 hours that I sat there, there was ONE other flight that left that airport. How did they not get my bag from the ONE LANE baggage check-in, through one of the FOUR DOORS going out of the airport and on to one of the TWO PLANES that were there? Did I mention they had FOUR HOURS to get it there? I still haven't quite figured this one out. Once again, my disastrous flying experience was completely because of someone else's stupidity.

Also, I partly blame airlines for being so ridiculous that they need to send airplanes 2 hours in the wrong direction before they take you where you want to go. Since when is Atlanta "on the way" from North Carolina to Minnesota anyway? Although--even better--I once had the option of a layover in Denver when flying from Minnesota to North Carolina. Figure that one out.

Among these 2 instances, we also had a flight canceled on us for no reason--no bad weather, no plane trouble, just 'cuz'. I have also sat on the tarmac in the plane for 1 hour because the pilot/control tower couldn't find our "take off numbers"--and I was trusting them with flying me home?! There are others too, but I won't continue on. 

Meanwhile, here I am FINALLY on my flight to Las Vegas after missing the first one. Why? I'll tell you why. MSP seems to be turning into the most ridiculous airport ever. We got there with what SHOULD have been plenty of time to check in--if people weren't so stupid. We parked, unloaded our bags, made our way through the airport passing right by the "Air France" baggage check (last time I check, Las Vegas is NOT in France) to go upstairs to check my bag. We get up there, and find like a TRILLION people. Attempting to get to the bag check counter, we encountered many of those annoying people who are walking along fine, then randomly decide to stop walking thereby clogging the single lane of available space to walk. I'm pretty sure Steve almost kicked someone out of the way.

Upon arriving at the back check waiting line, a lady told us, "Turn around and go down the escalator at '4' to check your bags. So we did. Guess where that landed us. Come on, just guess! Right at the "Air France" baggage check. Couldn't they have just put a sign down there saying "Don't even bother going upstairs, they're just going to send you back here". So that we wouldn't have wasted 1/2 hour trying to squeeze our way through ridiculously slow moving people only to be told to go back to where we came from? Of course not! That would be silly....?

At the baggage check, we were once again stuck behind people who would stand and stare at the check-in kiosk like it was telling them to strip off all their clothes in Japanese. After 1/2 of waiting, we finally got my bag checked and rushed upstairs to get into the 2 mile (seriously) long line to get through security. It didn't help that they had 1 of their 6 "security checkpoints" closed--although still fully manned--for some reason unknown to man.

We were directed to security check point #6 after being assured that even though it had a line 1 1/2 miles longer than every other checkpoint, it would be the fastest. I'm not convinced.

After over and hour, we made it through security with about 10 minutes until our flight left. Of course, it was at the gate that was the absolute furthest away. After a sorry attempt at running to the gate, we slowed to a power walk. We got there and they checked in our boarding passes and let us through the door. Astonished that a flight could actually go as planned for us, we were rejoicing as we ran down the walkway to the plane. Once we got there, the rather bitchy crabby lady at the other end said "It's closed, you'll have to go back." Yes, the plane was still right there. Yes we were technically there at 8:57 and the departure time was 9:00. Yes, I would have liked to rip her a new one right then and there. And yes, were it not for their lack of a sign at the baggage claim, we would have made it.

I'm never flying again...

It Must Be Love...

 **This post has been sitting in my "unfinished queue" for a week now..and I finally got to finishing it. Again, I am still sucking at the whole experimenting with my camera and taking pictures thing, so here are some of our wedding pictures.

One of the most common questions military spouses get, especially while their significant other is deployed, is, “How do you do it?” And I think I can speak for most all military spouses when I say, “We do it because we have to”. There is no other way to explain it. I don’t know how I did it. And to be honest with you, most days it seems like it was all a dream, like I didn’t actually do it at all. When I was going through it, it didn’t feel like my life was any different than anyone else’s. It didn’t seem that hard—most days.

The anticipation of being separated (by deployment) is FAR worse than when it actually happens. The first two weeks are “adjustment weeks” and then after that, you find a new routine, a new kind of normal, and coping mechanisms that make the rest of the time seem not quite so bad.

That being said, I find myself wondering how I ever did it. On Saturday, Steve went to a meeting in the cities for the business. It was only going to be a one day thing. And I knew that. I could have gone with him—I didn’t have anything going on, and families are usually welcome to come to those types of things, and sometimes even encouraged to go to them. But, he was riding with his brother, who was picking up a couple others, and he assured me that it wouldn’t be anything I would find interesting anyway. So, I decided to stay home and try to work on my mountain of things to do.

Friday night, I was absolutely dreading the next day. I hated the thought of being home, by myself, without him. I hated that I had to be away from him. Even if it was only for 12 hours—4 of which I was sleeping. On Saturday, I started missing him—like REALLY missing him, by about noon. And I slept in until like 10. It seems to happen at work every day too. About halfway through the day, I just start missing him like crazy and can’t wait until he comes home so I can see him and be with him.

I am laughing here, even though it kind of looks like I am mid-sneeze

Every weekend seems to fly by so fast, and then we are back to a WHOLE WEEK of going our separate ways, and doing our own things when I wish we could both just stay home all day every day and snuggle up on the couch and watch movies or something.

He keeps me sane and seems to find a way to solve all my problems. Tonight, I completely broke down and started crying over what I THOUGHT was a newly broken Christmas gift that I had been attempting to fix for about 3 hours. Steve saw how frustrated I was, put down what he was doing, and had my problem fixed in about 3 minutes. Apparently, it’s not broken, just ridiculously temperamental.  I’m not entirely sure what I would have done if he weren’t here, or what I did when he wasn’t here. Probably got ridiculously frustrated, cried, and then pretended that whatever problem I was having didn’t exist.

I don’t know how I survived with him gone. There’s no way to explain it, and no way for my brain to comprehend how I was capable of such a feat. Although I’m sure that I could do it again, if I had to, it doesn’t seem like it would be possible for me survive that long without him again. Especially when I feel like I can barely survive one day without him.

As much as being away from each other, and the deployments and the separation, and everything that goes along with the military lifestyle strengthened us, both individually, and as husband and wife, I think that the being able to actually be together has continued to make us stronger. And has succeeded in making me something that I wasn’t able to be for a long time. A spoiled wife who gets to be with her husband almost every day for at least a little while, and a wife who gets to snuggle up to her husband pretty much every night.

The only way I can explain all of it, this whole post. Everything that I’ve experienced in the last 5 years, everything I’m feeling right now, everything I hope to continue, is that it must be love. We must really have something special. I didn’t ever really doubt this. I mean, I did put up with 4 years of military, 2 deployments for the man. And married him—twice. But sometimes it’s kind of refreshing to take a look at the bond that you have, the feelings that you share, and be reminded how important people are to you.

On a (somewhat) side note, I’m not generally all that concerned about what other people think of me, but I do occasionally wonder, if certain things I do, or don’t do, are perceived by others to be something that they’re not. (How’s that for a confusing statement). One of those things that I sometimes wonder, is if the way my husband and I act around each other is appropriate for a couple who is fairly newly married, and fairly newly reunited after a deployment. (Leaning along the lines of, “Are we being lovey-dovey enough?”—I’m not a big fan of PDA).

Today I got a nice reassurance. I was sitting in church, before church actually started. And I had gone early since I volunteered to help with a Sunday School class. After Sunday School, I went into the sanctuary to find a spot and I sat there and waited for Steve to arrive. I talked a few people and Steve finally came and sat next to me. Shortly after, the church service started, starting with the standard “Stand up and greet your neighbors”. I turned around and shook the hand of the middle-aged man sitting behind me. I’m not going to say he was a complete stranger. He wasn’t. I had talked to him a couple times before. But it’s not like I have spent a lot of time conversing with him either. Generally we say “Hi” to each other and that would be it. You know, one of those deals where you know each other, but you don’t usually talk about anything of any real value. Anyway, upon saying the “Good mornings”, and the handshakes, (I wish I could remember his exact words) but he said something along the lines of, “I think it’s really good that you still get that twinkle in your eye when you look at him”. I was a little dumbfounded that someone I barely knew would notice something like that, but at the same time, encouraged that my love for Steve shows to other people.

 

I guess the only way to explain it is, it must be love…

Life

Following a series of unfortunate events and a slow, long ride home, I was given a chance to think about the past year and where it has brought us. We are in a COMPLETELY different spot—physically, mentally, and emotionally—than last year at this time. We were still in North Carolina, staring down the end of 4 years of active duty, and trying to figure out, “where do we go from here”. It’s a rather difficult decision. After 4 full years of the military more or less dictating every move of your life, when you finally gain your freedom back, it’s a little intimidating to try to figure out what to do with it. It takes a lot of adjusting. I found that out rather quickly.

Before the Marine Corps, I was all about schedules, and lists, and planning, and knowing where I was going to be, when. The Marine Corps takes your schedules, your lists, and your planning, rips them out of your hands, and throws them out the window. And every time you try to regain a shred of that plan they threw out the window, they grab it out of your hands even more quickly than the last time and throw it out the window again. Until, eventually, you just accept the fact that it will never change and you might as well quit trying. Which is exactly what I did. Oddly enough, now that we are done with the Marine Corps, I still don’t really make schedules, or lists, or plans. I just do what I feel like doing when I feel like doing it. In some ways, it’s not exactly the most ideal way to live—I would love to have my “structure” back. But, at the same time, it’s kind of liberating to not be bound by schedules and lists and planning. I’m thinking that’s what keeps me from going back to it.

Either way, my husband, I think, is the same boat as I am—a once very structured individual, stripped of all his own personal structure to fit into the structure of the military, and now not always sure of what he is going to do until he does it.

In many ways, this flaw character trait that we both now seem to possess has gotten us to where we are today. Originally, Steve had planned on going to school, but at the last minute he changed his mind, and decided to take up a business venture instead. Now, even though I am now a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl, this business venture was a little unnerving for me. I wasn’t convinced that it was the best move for us. Especially at this point in our lives. But, my husband cannot be talked out of something that he really wants to do, unless it’s himself trying to do the talking-out-of. So, I knew that we were going to be doing it regardless of what I thought of it.

Despite my reluctance, I have been trying to contribute in any way possible and be supportive. I have since changed my mind about this ordeal. Of course I still wonder, “where would we be if…”, but who doesn’t wonder that sometimes? Here we are, 5 months into our business venture, and I am beginning to be more and more okay with it, even excited about it. Do I think it was the best path for us? I don’t know. I will never know, since I didn’t get to experience the other paths. Is it better than I thought it was going to be? Yeah, I can honestly say that it is. Steve works hard every day, with the hope that his business will turn out to be able to provide for us, so that I won’t HAVE to work when we start thinking about having kids. Whether or not I would want to give up my job, I have no idea—I think I might want to continue at my job! Either way, I know what he was thinking when he started this business venture, and what he wants to come out of it, and that makes me even more supportive of him than I initially thought I would be.

The best parts about this whole thing? He LOVES his job. It’s something that he enjoys doing every day. Which is more than he can say about certain other jobs he has had. It doesn’t get much better than working at a job that you like. I love my jobs—both of them. I work a “normal” job at a bank during the day, and I come home and get to utilize my college education, as well as fulfill my desire to continue learning new things, by doing the bookkeeping for the business. We are both happy where we are working—what can be better than that!?

No matter how structured your life is, how many plans you make, or how many schedules you follow, sometimes a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants moment can bring lots of good things to set your life into a comfortable place.

And, because I STILL don’t have a new picture to go along with this blog, and because it was so cold and crummy today, here is one of my favorite pictures from last year at this time:

BTW, for those of you who haven’t figured this out yet, I have decided that my New Years Resolution needs to be modified (I know, I know, it’s like the 2^nd week of the year). My goal, now, will be at least 1 new blog post/life lesson/picture PER WEEK, instead of PER DAY. At least until after tax season is over…

The Dreaded Phone Call

When I was younger, my parents always had me study for my spelling tests right before I would go to sleep, with the belief that studying right before you went to sleep helped your brain to retain the information. I’m sure we’ve all heard that before though, so it’s not really “new” news. While I always did really well on my spelling tests, I’m not entirely convinced that it was because I studied before I went to sleep. I think it is just because I have always found spelling to be rather easy. (Please note that any spelling errors in this blog is most likely a “typo” and not an actual spelling error—I dislike proofreading, so I only do it when I have to). And, to be completely honest, I spent many a night studying late at night, even falling asleep while studying for some of my college courses, and I don’t think it helped any.

Either way, I never had dreams about spelling, or accounting, or anything else that I studied before I went to bed at night. At least not that I remember.

Which bring me to my next observation—I remember a LOT of my dreams. According to my 10^th grade Psychology class, that is BAD. That means that I am frequently woken up while during my REM sleep cycle which means I actually end up being more tired than I would, had I woken up and not remembered my dreams. Either way, my dreams are usually pretty crazy. If I actually believed that what you dreamt about had some hidden meaning, I would probably check myself into some dream analysis hospital, which would very quickly land me in a mental institution.

Occasionally I have fairly normal, realistic dreams though, and lately those dreams have been so vivid that I wake up wondering if I was dreaming, or if at least part of that dream really happened. As much as I would like to say that this blog post is about one of those crazy, screwed up, “how on Earth did I come up with THAT?” dreams, it’s not. It’s about one of the normal, realistic ones.

A few days ago, early in the morning, my husband and I were still sleeping. I have no idea what time it ACTUALLY was, but in my mind, I was thinking it was like 5am. I realize now that it was probably more like 8am, but whatever. We were still sleeping, and Steve’s phone rang. He looked at the number, and chose to ignore it. But, since he knew that it (barely) woke me up, he asked, “Who would be calling with a number that is all 1s?” Which spiraled me straight into a sleep induced panic, and VERY vivid dream. I heard the little “beep” informing him that the caller had left a voicemail for him. I told him (in my sleep) that he needed to listen to it RIGHT NOW to find out what they wanted. He didn’t, he just rolled over and went back to sleep.

It was very stressful to me that I didn’t know what the caller wanted (although, apparently not stressful enough to keep me awake because I fell asleep almost immediately after I told him he needed to listen to the voicemail RIGHT NOW. This whole thing probably requires a little further explanation—like why I was so adamant about knowing RIGHT NOW, and why it stressed me out so much to not know, and left me in a panic in my sleep. There actually is a very legitimate reason for feeling all of this, and here it is:

In the Marine Corps, they have what are called a “Family Readiness Officers”, or as Milspouses call them, “FROs”. While these people are available to help military families with anything, deployed or not, one of their more well-known duties, is to relay information to the families of deployed Marines, and to help those families cope with their Marine being gone. While Marines are deployed, they will send out (automated) phone calls to the families with any updates they receive. I was on the “calling list” while Steve was in Afghanistan. Whenever they would call, the number would show up on my phone as all 1s.

In my pretty much completely sleeping stupor, for some reason, I was certain that it was the FRO calling us to inform us that Steve was being called back into active duty. Now this isn’t a COMPLETELY nutso thought. It really could happen. Steve technically still has 2+ years of inactive duty left, meaning that if the need arises, they can call him back to go to war. Generally this would mean a deployment of mass proportions—as in every military man in the country who was “active duty” would have to be deployed before Steve would have to go again, and with all branches of the military currently OVER staffed, it is unlikely that will happen. But not impossible. The one slightly “nutso” aspect of that, is why I thought it would be the automated FRO phone call that would be informing us that he was being called back.

I was so confused about why we would be getting a phone call from them at all, that was the only conclusion that I could come to. It never even occurred to me that some one else’s number might show up like that. I think that’s why I wanted him to listen to the voicemail RIGHT NOW. I wanted to know why they were calling us.

I fell asleep thinking about this, and for once in my life, what I fell asleep thinking about actually reflected in my dreams. I dreamt that it was, in fact, the FRO. Luckily, he wasn’t calling to inform us that Steve had been reactivated, he was calling us to inform us of some heart condition that many of the Marines that were in Steve’s unit were experiencing, due to some kind of chemical or gas that they had been exposed to where they went. And that he should go to the VA and get checked out immediately.

Now, this isn’t entirely crazy either, although I am a little curious how it came into play. Steve was exposed to plenty of gases that were deemed “cancerous”, during his active duty. Not to mention the fact that they (meaning the Marines in the occupation) have come to the conclusion that “Trackers” are not able to have sons. And so far it has proven true to all but 1 person that I know—and that one’s son was born before he was in the Marine Corps, so that hardly counts. Again, that part that I don’t really understand is why I thought the FRO would be calling to inform us. When actually (since Steve is already dealing with the VA) it would probably be his doctor at the VA that would inform him of this.

Anyway, I woke up not too long after that, and was completely confused. I had no idea why I was dreaming about that, or how much of it was true. I didn’t know if the phone call had really been from the FRO, or if there even was a phone call, or if it was all a dream. I was going to ask Steve (who had also just woken up), if someone had called that had a number with all 1s, risking feeling like a complete moron, but I didn’t have to. Just as I was thinking about asking, he picked up his phone and called his voicemail. I listened, heart racing, as he keyed in his password and waited for the very kind-sounding, yet annoying “voicemail lady” to inform him that he had a new message.

I was relieved to hear that it was some lady asking about a tool repair.

I have heard about military men coming back from war and having flashbacks through dreams of their time in the warzone. And all the post-traumatic stress symptoms. I have even heard of milspouses with injured or KIA soldiers experiencing the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms through the recollections of their husbands. I’m not implying that I have anything remotely close to post-traumatic stress, but I did find it very odd, how worked up I got about a phone number. How panicked I got wondering why the military was calling us, and the sense of urgency of needing to know RIGHT NOW.

Although this “lesson” is something that I already knew, it was a good reminder that war affects everyone. It doesn’t just stop at the soldiers, or even their families. It goes beyond that a plays a role in everyone’s lives—whether they like it or not. And it doesn’t just go away—even the smallest triggers can send feeling flooding back.

So, no picture for this one either—I’m not doing so hot on the “picture” aspect of my New Years’ Resolution, but honestly, I’m not sure what I would take a picture of to go with this story, so I will save the picture for another blog post.

Twas the Night of Christmas

Now, I’m not going to discredit my husbands driving, because honestly—it’s far better than most peoples. He has never been pulled over, never been in an accident, and has driven more different kinds of vehicles than I can count, including MATVs in Afghanistan while TRYING to find IEDs. He has also driven me (literally) all over the country—from North Carolina, to Minnesota, back to North Carolina, then down to Florida, Alabama, and up to Minnesota again. So, I have ridden MANY hours with him. And I have no complaints. But I do have to say this—his attention to detail while driving is pretty much non-existent.

Here’s a short example: one of the times we were driving to or from North Carolina, there was a piece of wood lying in the middle of the road. When I am driving and I see a piece of wood lying in the middle of the road, I avoid it at all costs, because my thought is “It might have a nail in it, and I don’t want a flat tire.” A logical thought, I think. However, Steve just drove right over the top of it. And I said, “I hope there wasn’t a nail in that!” To which Steve responds, “A nail in what?”…“Umm…that board that was in the middle of the road that you just drove over”… “Oh, I guess I didn’t see it”. While I’m thinking “How in the world did you NOT see that!?”

I also can’t tell you how many times we have been driving home at night—during prime deer season—and I will be “on the watch” for deer. When I see one, I will say “Deer!” and point to the direction in which I see it. I do this, with the intention of pointing it out to Steve, so he, too, can see it, watch it, and slow down for when it decides to jump out in front of us. Generally when I do that he says “What?”, and again, I say “Deer!” while pointing even more frantically in the direction of the deer that I just KNOW is calculating the perfect time to decide to go springing in front of us so it was sure to be a direct it. But still, Steve stares dumbfounded out the windshield and continues driving full speed ahead, while I attempt to stare the deer down DARING it to cross the road…

Well, tonight we are on our way home from the in-laws Christmas, and as always, Steve is at the wheel. We are talking about who knows what, when out of nowhere, comes a deer that had just made a HUGE bounding leap and was flying through the air. I saw it, almost immediately and knowing we were going to hit it, all I could manage to squeak out was “AAAHHH!!”, as I literally stared him in his eyes out the side window as he reached the moment of panic when he realized he shouldn’t have made that fateful leap. I was almost positive that in 1.2 seconds I was going to have a deer sitting on my lap. Then we hear “THUNK!” on the side of the Blazer. And, of course, to no avail, Steve says, “What was that?” In my head, I was thinking, “Umm…did you COMPLETELY miss the whole episode with the flying deer?” but I just responded “A deer. We just got hit by a deer.” His reponse? “A deer?”…“Yes, a deer.”

And the next words out of his mouth? “Well you could have warned me.” (Because as per the story further up the page, you all know that warning him works SO well). I informed him that warning him would have done absolutely no good—partly because we would have hit him no matter what, partly because my mouth was unable to form words, and partly because he wouldn’t have paid any attention to me yelling “DEER!” anyway.

I suggested we should get out and check the damage once we got to town before we got home, so we were in a well lit spot where we could see. Steve responded with “We have flashlights”. But I convinced him by saying “But the damage always looks way worse in bright lights.”

We checked it out and luckily it’s not terrible, although any body damage is usually pretty expensive to fix. There is a little bit of a dent in the wheel well, but we were at least able to laugh about it on the rest of the way home.  

As for my project? There is no picture, because it’s dark and cold outside—plus I don’t know that I can really be that artistically creative while photographing a dent in the vehicle anyway. I am also not entirely sure that there is a lesson to be learned here either. Maybe if I thought about it long enough, but I think I am just going to leave that out…for now.

Camaraderie

I frequently feel bad for my younger brother. Despite having 2 siblings (and now, 2 sibling-in-laws), he pretty much grew up as an only child. There were only 2 years between my older brother and I so we pretty much had a “built in” playmate (each other) which was vital when we were younger and lived so far out in the country that we couldn’t just “ride our bikes” to our friends’ houses. But with 11 year between my 2 brothers, and 9 years between my younger brother and I, his built in playmates were both graduated from high school by the time he was in 4^th grade, and married when he was in 7^th grade.

I haven’t failed to notice though, that he DOES get to do more things than Derek and I did as kids, and he gets away with a lot more too—thereby making him the “spoiled child”. However, I have also decided that no amount of being spoiled would make me want to trade in the memories of playing tractors, building snow forts, hosting our own radio show in the sandbox, or the time that we (I say we because Derek was CERTAIN it would work, and I—stupidly—believed him) discovered that girls CANNOT, in fact, pee on the tree while standing up—which is a few of the things that Derek and I did while we were younger.

However I have recently realized another advantage he has to growing up, being the youngest by many years. His own personal cheering section at wrestling matches and other sporting events is 350% (or more) larger than what Derek and I had. I wasn’t in sports really—2 years of softball was about it for me—but when I was, usually it was mom and dad that showed up at my games (which was fine, since I rarely hit the ball or made any “big” plays, or even any plays at all). Grandma and grandpa would occasionally come, but with 10 grandchildren they had to divide their time (understandably). Alec had his first (home) wrestling meet on Thursday and I looked around. There we all sat—Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa (who now have 11 grandchildren, but with 5 that are older and don’t have anything exciting enough worth watching going on), Steve and I, Derek, Kolby, and 5 month old nephew Jack. That’s right—we were all there. The cheering section of “2” that I had when I was younger, has since turned into a cheering section of “9”. Probably the biggest personal cheering section there that night. Although, if you’ve ever been to a wrestling match, you soon find out that the entire crowd becomes this unified, almost magical cheering section for ever kid that wrestles—whether they know them or not. And they. Are. VOCAL. And even though this is completely irrelevant (as is a lot of stuff in this blog post) I just MUST point out that on this particular night at the wrestling match, I knew of at least 3 families who didn’t even have children IN HIGH SCHOOL, let alone in high school wrestling that were there. And that was just the ones that I knew and could see from where I was sitting.

Anyway, there we all were, present and in the flesh, ridiculously early (except Steve who came later). When the time came, the lights dimmed and the ‘spotlight’ was turned on illuminating the wrestling mat. The music starts—“Sandstorm”—I had no idea that techno was still taking the world (or at least the high school) by storm. And out they come running—around the circle of the wrestling mat. My mom, always the avid sports fan (insert sarcasm here), says “This is a little overdone.” I told her that they have done this for as long as I can remember. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt that they did this when Derek was in wrestling 13 years ago. I figure, that whole spectacle got me kind of “pumped up” sitting in the crowd—I can’t imagine what it does for them as they run around that circle to a song that they undoubtedly chose. And if that’s what gets them excited and ready to go, then by all means, “overdo” it as much as necessary! Alec was one of the last ones to wrestle.

We sat through many wrestling matches, of kids we didn’t really know, and yet still got into the spirit of the “whole crowd” cheering going on. I’ve never been one to be real vocal in my cheering—I’ve decided that the chance that they are actually going to hear me is far to slim to justify the energy it takes to yell it. Plus, what do I yell? My dad, being a state champion wrestler in high school, can actually yell out useful information. He can yell out what move the kid should make so he would actually be of some help in the event that the kid hears his voice. Me? Although I have been to MANY wrestling meets, I know very little about the actual rules of the sport—I know punching and biting are not allowed, and that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I can’t see what move the wrestler should make next in order to escape whatever predicament he has gotten himself into. That means that my yelling would consist of “Come on ________” What does that even mean? And how exactly would that benefit him in the event that he hear my voice above everyone else’s. It wouldn’t benefit him. At all. So, I usually choose to sit there and cheer on the inside where my pointless advice won’t be heard by anyone else. Maybe it would also increase the likelihood that he would hear one of the people, like my dad, who is actually providing him with useful information.

When the match got to the wrestler right before Alec, I grabbed my camera and headed down the steps of the bleachers to sit on the floor in front of everyone—knowing that my camera’s zoom is minimal, at best (until I can save up enough money to buy a telephoto lens for it). I sat there and played with it a little bit, photographic some kid that I don’t even know as he wrestled another kid I don’t know. In an attempt to find some cool shot that I could use when Alec was wrestling. And I finally figured it out. I was so excited that I figured out how to do something cool with my camera that I didn’t really KNOW about, but discovered by experimenting. Here it is (only this is actually Alec wrestling):

  

Now, I know that if this same exact photo, in this same exact situation were taken  by someone else, I’m sure they would have been able to make the shot at least 400 times cooler, just by doing some other adjustment that I don’t actually know about—yet. I also know that my fancy schmancy camera is capable of taking photos way better than this. But I’m learning, remember?! That’s the whole point of this. So, for now, I am satisfied with this. I had a vision in my head of what I wanted the picture to look at, and through trial and error I figured out how to produce it.

For the record, here is a shot similar (lighting wise) to what that picture would have looked like had I just used my camera as a “point and shoot” instead of making adjustments myself:

Either way, as I was sitting there on the floor, for the first part of the match that Alec was wrestling, I was completely absorbed in my camera. I wanted to get “the shot” before he either lost, or beat the person he was wrestling. But as the match went on, and on, and on. I become less interested in taking pictures, and more interested in how Alec was doing. He was “winning” for most of the match. He always had the “upper hand” on the other guy and was always in the better position. There was one point where he got into trouble, but he was lucky (yes, lucky) that he was right on the outside of the ring and managed to scoot/get pushed out far enough that they had to get up and move to the middle again.

Toward the end of the match, I found myself yelling—like, out loud, not just in my head—although still nothing worthwhile. And I’m pretty sure I even threw in a few floor slaps—since I WAS sitting on the floor. I could tell toward the end that he was getting tired (and understandably so) and I think that’s why I was yelling. I was trying to use my energy to help him. Of course it doesn’t actually work that way. They went all three periods with no pin, but because Alec had acquired the most points during those three periods, he achieved himself a “win by decision”, three points for his team, and his FIRST varsity wrestling victory with his whole family sitting there watching him.

So, in regards to my New Year’s project, I have the blog post, I have the photo experiment, where’s the lesson? I have no idea. With the photo on Facebook, I posted this quote:

“The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing. The main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unforeseen attack." -Marcus Aurelius

I had the intention of making my blog about some lesson related to this quote, but the blog seems to have taken a different path and maybe there is a second lesson that lies in the blog post I generated. Maybe it should be something along the lines of:

“The camaraderie that exists—between strangers, and between family—paired with the inner strength that you know you possess, can yield results you thought might not be possible.”

How’s that for profound?