BlokThoughts: Life dropped kicked us!

I think when one gets comfortable in life it is exactly the time when the man upstairs says, "Ah, perfect teaching moment!".

In life my husband and I are really similar in the fact that we both like and enjoy change and that we are pretty laid back and take life as it comes to us. I'm lucky that my husband doesn't overreact to much. I'm lucky that we both live and believe the same principles and the same gospel so that we look at experiences the same way and have similar goals in where we want to end up beyond this earthly life.

I have to admit that we have been blessed. And moving to where we live now was beyond a shadow of a doubt the RIGHT thing for us to do. We have almost been here four years we had only planned on two. Either way we are still here. MSM has one more semester and he is done with school.

His job has been great to the fact that they have worked with him so that he has still been able to get mostly full time hours and still go to school full-time.

Like I said. We have been lucky.

We were comfortable.

A week before New Years my husband was told that his office was being closed down.

He had a week maybe two and then he was out of a job.

For him, having worked with that job for over 15 years and wanting to get out of it for the last 10 years. His burden has been lifted. Sure he planned on finding a new job as soon as he graduated. That was our plan. Now we are being forced to do it. We will not give up this last semester though, he will graduate, so we will muddle through. Which means that I am the sole provider of the family.

It's a dichotomy to me. I don't WANT to work (I know I know-guys do it all the time and a lot of women now do), but I must. I have the insurance and right now I have the job. I don't want him to give up one semester before graduation because I can't give up a few things in my life so that he can't continue with school. No he NEEDS to graduate, he NEEDS to finish school.

So I must work.

I will tell you though. When I first heard the news I was a bit excited! Change! Yes! But then I realized it wasn't a good change. At least for right now. In a sense, at least for us, we will be--for the first time in our married lives, kinda struggling. So to speak. We will have to cut back on a LOT. We are selling our van to get rid of the payment. (Anyone need a Nissan Quest 2005 at a killer deal???) We are cutting back... which we have never really HAD to do. At times we chose to... but we have never really been forced to do so.

Now we have no choice.

I just hope I can obtain a semblance of myself. I hope I stay happy, positive, and optimistic because that is my character. I hope working more hours doesn't drain my personality like I've seen it do to so many. I hope that I can still give my kids part of myself when I get home from a long day. That the time I spend with them will be quality because I won't have the luxury of quantity right now. I hope at those dark times that I know will come (because they always do, no one is perfect or obsolete from times of depression and self doubt), where I'll turn into myself and my soul will curl up in a fetal position and I will wonder if this is all worth it because I won't be thinking straight from the exhaustion and drain that comes with such a responsibility--I hope that I won't take it out on my husband or blame him. I hope I remember that we are in this together, that this is what we want.

Because this IS what we want.

But that is OUR BIG CHANGE IN LIFE that I was talking about. I have already been working like crazy with photography... this last few months being the busiest. But I always had a choice in it. I wasn't pressured to gain more clientele and it wasn't about the money. Same with my job at the airlines. It is flexible and so were my hours. So me working was more so that we could have the extra things.

Now the shift from being allowed the choice to mainly not having that freedom any longer seems more like a jump across a huge river rather than a small leap across a stream.

At the other side of this we will look back and see this as a major blessing.

I have every bit o

f faith that we will be fine. My husband is a great guy. He will do everything in his power to support us. He would work 2 or 3 jobs if he had to so that I and my children could live the life he wants for us.

So I can do this for him. I can be the sole supporter so that he can go to school.

We will be okay. Teaching moment that it is. I have no doubt we will be strengthened by it.

Before all of this happened I read a great post by WhyIsDaddyCryin about him losing his job. Incredible post. I think it puts into words how a lot of us feel in this position. Take a read if you have a minute.

Love,