Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Changing direction

During the twenty-three years my husband and I have been married, we have worked opposite shifts for eighteen of them.  A dozen and a half years of living in a revolving door has been by far our single most challenging hurdle.  


For me, the primary downside of having a husband who works second shift is that I have been, for all intents and purposes, a single parent much of the time.  I have done the vast majority of homework helping, ball game watching and parent/teacher conference attending alone.  I have sat by myself at band and choral concerts, awards dinners, in doctor's offices and on many a set of cold, hard bleachers wishing beyond words to have my husband by my side.  


If you were to ask him, Dan would tell you this has been his biggest hurdle too. He has, after all, missed out on many, if not most, of the boys' major success and little victory moments.  He wasn't there when Kyle won the final match and consequently the entire meet for his wrestling team in the 8th grade.  He wasn't there for Aaron's National Junior Honor Society induction.  He missed out on seeing Zach the day he got his high school diploma.  My most special days with the boys have been among some of Dan's saddest.




It's the simple things of life...the things most married couples take for granted...that we have missed out on all these years.  Sitting down to dinner together.  Actually talking face to face rather than via text or phone.  Celebrating both the big and little things as a family.  Going to bed at the same time rather than me climbing out of it about the time he's climbing in.  We really haven't been able to share our whole lives...not the way we've wanted to...certainly not the way we thought we would when we got married oh so many years ago.  


All this separation has taken it's toll on my husband.  He has a deep anguish over the things he has sacrificed all these years...the precious moments he's missed...the things he has lost that he can never get back.  


As our children are growing up and now beginning to go away, he questions the choices he has made..we have made.  He asks if being a good provider was reason enough to be a part-time parent.  He wonders if, in the end, it will really have been worth it all.  


So here we stand on top of the hill that is being middle aged.  We look back and see a place we can never return to....a place both replete with glorious memories of days gone by and littered with the remnants of our past mistakes.  We look forward and wonder what still lies ahead.  We ask, can we erase any of the heartache of the past by choosing better in the future?  Can we heal the wounds of yesterday by applying the salve of today's wisdom and insight?  Is it possible to change directions so late in the journey and still end up exactly where we ought to be?  


As we face the second half of our lives...the time when we begin to go back to being 'just us'...we find ourselves redefining what 'happy' means and refining our plan for how to get there from here.   We know now that sometimes learning to live with less is the only way to truly have more....that dollars and cents can't always make up for everything we have to trade to get them.   We wish we had realized that much much earlier but we accept that we can't undo what's been done.  However, we also know it's not too late to start doing things differently.


So instead of laying down and beginning a slow roll over that proverbial hill, we are going to shift gears and try going a whole new direction.  It's scary.  It's exciting.  It's something new.  It's frankly something long overdue.  I take a deep breath, pray, pray and pray again and, hand in hand with the only man I've ever loved, step out into the great unknown.  And when we land...wherever we land...so long as we're still clinging to each other, I know everything will be all right.