We Do What We Have to Do, Even Solo Vacations

Saturday morning, L and I are leaving for two weeks in Michigan.

We’re leaving E behind in Virginia.

I am not excited about this, but there’s no doing anything about it. E is in a tenuous place between pseudo-employment (a paid internship that his government agency is graciously extending because he is just so awesome they don’t want him to leave) and a real full-time job with said government agency. Seriously, people, the hiring process for this deal has been going on for months. It is soooooo slooooooow. That said, he is in the final final final stages, and it’s at that point where the deal could be sealed at any moment. And so – he needs to be here. In case.

I have been hoping against hope for weeks that this would not be how it is, but to no avail. I am in that place of saying in one breath, “God, I know this is your provision, and I’m beyond thankful,” and then in the next breath I am whining and saying:

“Butidontwannagoonvacationwithouthimlordcantyoudosomethinaboutthis?”

And then I slap myself around some and remind myself to Be. An. Adult. We are going without him. And that is all. Military wives like my sister do this all the time. They have to.

Of course, it is not all, and if I did not have to be in my corporate office next week, we would not be going to Michigan, because that is how I feel about driving eleven or twelve hours by myself with a demanding two year old in the back seat and then spending two weeks without E and then making the drive all over again. It just isn’t worth it.

But we are going. Because I have to. And he is staying. Because he has to.

Oh, and by the way, next week is our wedding anniversary.

Just ugh.

I know I am ridiculous because for the LOVE of PETE (whoever he is), God has been so so so good to us throughout this whole graduate-school-new-career process, providing for every need, and if part of that provision means I have to make one measly trip across the country with L on my own because E is about to get THE JOB, well then, what’s the big deal? I need to get a grip, I know.

Maybe I will feel differently when I am sitting on the lakeshore in Grand Haven on Sunday morning and hugging my friend Merigan in person for the first time in over five years and shopping all my favorite shops and eating breakfast at my favorite restaurant in GR with my heartmate Sarah and building sandcastles with L and eating a blueberry crumble flurry at the Dairy Treat and a Butch’s Beach Burrito and sitting around the campfire on the dunes with my sister-in-law Heather with our collective brood snuggled into their sleeping bags. Maybe, then, I will feel it was worth it. And maybe it really will be. Because – Michigan. It’s my roots and all that.

I just hate the thought of going without him, people.

Bucking up now.