Monday, January 24, 2011

The Best Laid Plans of Moms, Marathoners, and Military Wives

How ironic it is that one of the great consistencies in our lives, is CHANGE. Yes, with great reliability we can always expect change to come. I have waited almost four months to make this post, mostly because I kept waiting for plans to finalize before I made my report; however, as I am STILL waiting for all the details to settle into something solid, and as the events of the last three months have had great effect on some of my choices, I will just go ahead and attempt to describe the mayhem.

About the time I signed up to run in the Walt Disney World marathon, my husband walked into a Navy Recruiter's office and started the enlistment process. The economy has been hard on so many families, and in our situation, my hard working hubby had finished his degree only to find that jobs were hard to come by. Though I was sick over the thought of my husband being away for any extended period of time, I was extremely proud of him for being so willing to do whatever it took to take care of us and meet upcoming school bill obligations.

I expected the process to move quickly; in fact, I wondered if we would spend Christmas without him, and in the months of October, fund-raisers and training kept my mind occupied and my stresses constructively vented. By November however, we started to realize that our destiny as a military family was not to be a speedy one. Paperwork had been finished (or so we thought), but there always seemed to be a missing document, or a line they'd forgotten to have us sign, or a schedule snafu. Wade's physical had been scheduled and rescheduled at least four times.

Sigh. It was a time for me--the mom, the marathoner, and the future military wife—to set priorities. Delays meant that Wade would be with us for Christmas, and for this gift, I was ever so thankful. However, my training schedule was getting much more demanding, and fund-raising was intense. I'd already moved my event from the January Walt Disney Race, to the February Myrtle Beach Race. As I looked over the adjusted training schedule, I knew that if Wade went to boot camp after the New Year, the time involved in the weekly and weekend runs would propose a two fold problem. First of all, I would be functioning as a single parent for a while. I would have to get a sitter four times a week just to train. More importantly, if daddy was going to be away, my children would need their MOM.

With these situations on the horizon, I switched to the Myrtle Beach half-marathon after Thanksgiving. Though I felt a bit disappointed, I also had an amazing sense of accomplishment. The previous weekend, I had run ten miles! My life was so different than it had been a year ago, and granted, my life probably will be drastically different a year from now; but because I have taken control of something in my life that used to be such a wild card (my weight), I can be sure of one thing. Wherever this military momma is one year from now, she's gonna look good standing next to that uniformed man!

1 comment:

  1. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He WILL direct your paths! Proverbs 3:5,6
    Praying for you both!

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