The honeymoon is over.
Real life is back.
And it's not 'normal.'
When I was little, I was the Queen of Homesick at slumber parties. We'd get ready for bed, lay down, and I'd listen to all of the unfamiliar sounds and just panic. Not much later, I would be on the phone with my mom or dad begging them to come pick me up. It was the unfamiliar that set me on edge. The sounds. The smells. The routine. It wasn't like 'at home.'
I finally grew mostly out of my homesickness by middle school. I was able to cope a little bit better with the unfamiliar. Then, I moved to college. I went through a whole new kind of homesickness: the kind where there is no calling home and getting picked up and escaping the unfamiliar. I had a few breakdowns within the first month, but then school became the new normal. The new familiar. It was still hard for the next 3 years whenever I left my family and home, but it got better because school was my second home. Then later, the house I rented at school was a second home.
In each of these stages in my life, though, I knew that eventually I would be going home. Home to the house I grew up in. Home to the people I grew up with. Now I am in a new stage of life. A new state of life transition. In this stage, I am making a new permanent home. My new permanent home is with my Husband. This stage is so much harder than I ever imagined. It's hard to grasp the gravity of the event when while you're dating and engaged, the only thought you have is that you're tired of saying goodbye and you simply want to spend all of your time with your loved one. After that thought though, you return to the familiar and you're robbed of the impact.
Well, that impact has hit full force now. It is compounded by the fact that we currently do not have our new permanent home. My nesting impulse is completely confounded. I want to clean and decorate and rearrange and make a space ours. But today, we're still in limbo, waiting for some sense of stability. We are in a holding pattern for the next 2 weeks (we decided together). I feel lost as to how to make this work. It is so unlike anything else I've experienced. I find it hard not to withdraw. So, I need to reach out.
I reached out to my mother for help, and this was her advice to me: It's all about attitude. Pray for help with your attitude. When I was 14, I went on a mission trip to Ukraine as a spoiled American brat. I came back different. I went again 2 more times, the last during college. Right before I went on that trip, my attitude about life was awful. I was fighting with everyone and downright depressed and miserable. After going on the trip, my perspective was changed again. My mom's advice continued:
At this point, tell yourself I can withstand anything for 2 weeks. Then think of all you saw in the Ukraine . . . it might help put things in perspective. It is not what you envisioned for yourself, but maybe it is right where you should be . . .Thank you, Mom. I guess I need to just breathe, rearrange and clean what space I have left, and pray desperately for God's help to help me see past the discomfort, the unfamiliar and the unstable. All the while, I need to enjoy every second I have with my husband. Find the joy in the moment.
And make new peace with the new 'normal.'
