My Life in Cliff Notes
I haven’t written in months, and I have so much to say but very little direction. First, let me fill you in on all of life’s happenings since we last chatted.
Number one, I haven’t baked bread since my last post. But I’m crossing my fingers that summer air will bring new inspiration and patience for sourdough. Second, we found out we are having a baby boy this August! As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I wanted a boy. But as soon as we found out it was a boy, I was so sad for my daughter not to have a sister. We have since processed all of these emotions and have come full circle; plus, my daughter is the perfect candidate for being an only girl, and she has also accepted this fate- I mean, honor! (over time).
Thirdly, I have had some serious emotional highs and lows with this pregnancy! And so far, I think it has brought with it a lot of clarity. I have experienced so much change in my life and I don’t think I have ever fully felt all the feelings attached to those changes. I think the pregnancy hormones have also stirred the pot a bit. I thought it would be helpful (dare I say, therapeutic) to write out the highlight reel of my adult life so far. And at the end I’ll write the sappy part that you can choose to skip if that’s not your cup of tea.
My life story in cliff notes:
I am 17 years old and finally getting over my high school boyfriend. The one that I have been planning my entire life around for years. I graduate in 3 months and have a scholarship lined up to cheer at a college just 3 hours from my hometown outside of Atlanta. I am currently on a missions trip in the Dominican Republic with all my friends and life is good. The trip ends, my family picks me up from the airport, and we all go out to dinner so that my parents can let us all know together that we are leaving in the morning to go on a little weekend vacation. Wow! So fun! Except it’s actually a job interview for my dad. And the job is in Alaska.
So a quick fast forward… the interview goes great, my parents visit Alaska, my dad takes the job. It’s April of 2012, I graduate next month, and my parents and 2 younger siblings will move to Alaska days after graduation. Probably my worst summer to date. We spent the record breaking rainy days looking for a house and car in a new city. And I started talking to my high school boyfriend again.
p.s. this is NOT my high school boyfriend… this is my little brother, Eric.
I survive the summer and my parents fly me back to school to meet up with my older brother. He drops me off at school with no friends, no car, no family. So of course, I keep talking to that ex boyfriend. I finally make some friends though, so things are looking up. Christmas break rolls around and the old boyfriend calls things off again. I am devastated - enter Taylor Swift’s Red album.
I decide to stay in Alaska with my family. I start school at the local college and have to learn how to drive in snow. I’m sad most of the time but I do lose 50 pounds by running miles and miles everyday. I never made a single friend that semester, but that’s what drives me to follow my college friends to a new school in Charleston, SC. I fly down and my brother takes me to see the school and try-outs for the cheerleading team. One of my biggest regrets of that whole year is not actually trying-out for the team. I went to one practice, got scared I wouldn’t make it, and went home. I did end up going to the school though - with 2 of my old college friends!
In a shocking turn of events, I start talking to my old boy friend again. Things get weird and family gets involved, but it finally comes to an end. This time wasn’t as hard for me, but I decided I should for the first time ever, go on a real date. To keep things short, I meet Ben and think he’s kind of sketchy. He “friends” me on Facebook and asks if I want to “hang”. He also invites me to the house “he” has in town. (later I find out he meant his parents house LOL) After weeks of ignoring each other, but also seeing that he’s not as weird as his messages sounded, I agreed to a “hang”. But this time I make him work for it and actually plan a date. We got burgers, browsed a book store, and went for a boat ride in the most romantic spot. It was pretty darn cute. 6 months later, with our parents approval and our friends disappointment, we got engaged. I ditched my friends to plan a wedding and blew off another opportunity to cheer, but I married the love of my life. I don’t regret it, but I would probably do it different looking back.
I can’t really recall why we moved to Alaska after the wedding, but we did. We found a cute little apartment and I went to school while Ben worked full time as an insurance agent. I had a miscarriage the summer of 2015. We stayed in Alaska for a year until I found out I was pregnant again, and Ben started panicking that he needed to graduate. We transfered back to Charleston and started school full time. We had Sawyer and took him to school with us everyday, trading off babysitting duty in the campus coffee shop. All of our friends have transferred or graduated and I am feeling overwhelmed as a new mom and lonely. We were so blessed to have family there to help us in the toughest times. We both got part time jobs to pay our bills, but it was never enough. We would get these Burger King coupons in the mail for $1 burgers, and Ben got unlimited popcorn at his movie theater job, and that kept us going for about a year.
In 2018 Ben quit school and pursued his own fishing charter business. We begged and borrowed to buy the boat he needed, and I decided to finish my degree online. I also found myself pregnant once again, so I decided I needed a full time job so Ben could focus on his business- oh and he is also part time landscaping on the days he doesn’t have clients. I start working for my mother-in-law as a medical assistant. I have no experience, but I am very determined. I pass the training and exam and start working just in time to take a 6 week maternity break (unpaid of course). My father-in-law is helping with the kids most days, but I am spiraling in postpartum blues while trying to be a full time wife, mom, student, and employee. Most of those years are a blur.
In 2019 we visit my family in Alaska and Ben has a conversation with a friend who is a pilot. He becomes obsessed. As soon as we get back home, he decides to sell the boat, forget the business, and wants to pursue a career in aviation. For context, to be a pilot you need hundreds of hours of flight time which costs hundreds of dollars per hour. And it should be clear by now that we have been broke since the day we met. Selling the boat gets us some cash, I get a good raise at work that helps us, and I apply for every credit card I can and the rest we borrow from a lender that lets stupid people buy stupid things. So naturally, we buy an airplane. Ben hustles to get his private pilot certification and every penny we make goes towards his training. Ben decides we need to move back to Alaska, I do not agree, but we apply for teaching positions at the school my parents work at. Ben (unschooled, unqualified) gets a job. I (has a degree, qualified) do not get a job. Oh, I’m also pregnant again.
So based off of Ben’s new 30k salary, we decide it’s a great choice to move back to Alaska. And move in with my parents.
It’s May of 2020. Ben finishes his private pilot and wants to fly his plane to Alaska, COVID says no. We pay monthly to store his plane in a hangar in Charleston. We sell literally everything we own and move to Alaska and Ben teaches elementary music.
We have a new baby and I start applying for a teaching job. I am bound and determined to use my 8 year long earned bachelor degree. I get the job! Ben and I teach together for the next year and finally have adult friends. It feels insignificant to the story, but we had never had community like this before. I felt like myself again. Like after 6 years I could finally breathe… even though we are paying off an airplane we don’t use, and living with my parents, and have 3 kids to support…it was that life-giving of a community.
Ben finally gets his plane to Alaska and meets a lifelong friend while doing it. I have my dream job and even get to start a cheerleading program at the school. Ben flies for months building hours, and at the end of 2022 he sells his plane for double what we paid and uses the money to pay for an advanced training program to complete his commercial pilot license. Ben is gone for 2 months while I work full time and somehow drag all 3 of my kids to late night basketball games twice a week. I don’t say this becuase I am super mom. I say this becuase I emotionally shut off for 2 months so I could survive.
When Ben gets back he starts applying for jobs, and through his connections as a music teacher, he gets a job! The catch is, it is based in Soldotna, AK. We always knew we couldn’t be picky about his first pilot job, so we take it. We find the perfect place to live but sadly leave behind our people. It’s only a 3 hour drive that we end up making 2-3 times a month. I start working a small school where all 3 of our kids can attend. Ben starts working, and while it has its challenges, we are just so thankful to be living his dream.
That leads us to right now! We are almost a year into living in Soldotna. The biggest struggle I have everyday is not having my community here. It’s hard for my kids not to have their grandparents around. It’s hard not having a friend to call when Ben is working out of town and I need help with dinner. It’s a balance to live everyday thankful for the life we have been building for 10 years, but also mourning the simple times of being together with people we love everyday.
The most challenging piece for me, is knowing everything will change again within the next year. Ben’s goal is to be a commercial airline pilot and he is getting closer to his goal everyday. With that comes a handful of airline domiciles to choose from, and another fresh start.
Enter sappy paragraph(s):
There are so many pivotal moments left out of this version of my story, but those are the highlights that have shaped so much of my life. Above all things, my personal relationship with Christ has grown over these years. Growing up in a Christian home can make the idea of God feel so familiar that it cheapens the relationship. When you are solely relying on God’s sufficiency in your life, you quickly recall the power and mercy found in Christ alone. It’s like you are seeing God for who He really is for the first time in your life. But that can fade again when you are so internally focused, that you fail to see God at work around you.
Somewhere along this journey I stopped feeling everything. I know the enneagram and other personality tests are frowned upon in certain Christian circles, but those tools have actually taught me a lot about how I process emotions and the ways I need to grow. I am a critic at heart, but I also feel a strong urge to see other people’s perspective. I long to feel accepted and pursued and despise rejection. I avoid the let down at almost any cost, including feeling the highs of life, in an effort not to feel the inevitable lows. I want you to LOVE me! But I don’t want to meet you, or be social, because that takes every ounce of emotional energy I have. But you won’t ever know that, because I am so good at being social that people think that I love it. Which is exactly what I want! Except deep down, I also want people to know who I really am. I hate conflict and one of my priorities in life is to feel comfortable. I usually have no opinion about anything. Until I do have an opinion, and then I will overanalyze that opinion until I’m not sure if that’s still my opinion anymore.
If nothing else, I am acutely aware of how crazy I am. But I also know that God created me with this unique set of characteristics for His glory. I just recently had really impactful conversations that has been helping me realize how much I have been relying on myself lately. I frequently say that my spiritual gift is “faith”. But I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know that I have been trusting in God as much as I have been squeezing my eyes shut, hoping for the best thing to happen, and closing down all emotions to side step dissapointment. I am so afraid to feel sad or lonely that I choose to feel nothing at all. But that is self reliance. That is a false humility that I didn’t even recognize. I am learning that true faith in God is feeling and being present; and despite all of the joy and pain, depending on a good father that is working all things according to my good for His glory. That is truly living faithfully.
This Sunday at church someone said to me, “How do you do it all, I need to take notes”. I laughed it off, but inside I wanted to scream, “You do not want to learn this the way I had to learn!” I often joke that I have lived a lot of lives in my almost 30 years. It’s true though! I have learned how to be a supportive wife, how to raise babies in very uncertain times, how to balance work and life and self. I still have an unspeakable amount of things to learn in the next 30 years.
I am grateful for each season of life I have lived, but moving forward, I don’t want to lose pieces of my life to fear or self reliance. I want to walk fully in the light I am given, because my life is not my own. And that is the most comforting piece of advice I could ever give you.