A Look Back

Last week I celebrated 1 year of being in Texas and working in the corporate office. I don't think I will ever be able to explain everything that this past year has been for us, but I'm going to break down a few major milestones: 

Marriage: In the past year I have traveled just as much as I've actually been in Texas. Ryan and I knew when I took the position that it would be travel intensive, but in my excitement to grow and move forward I naively underestimated the toll that a travel based job can have on a marriage, or any relationship. It's hard. And while I don't believe that a woman has to be the homemaker while the man works in a marriage, I now firmly believe that a wife having the travel job brings a whole different dynamic to a marriage than when a husband is the traveler. My husband has been amazing. He has been my rock, holding down the home while I'm on the road, doing all the laundry and most of the meals, and never complaining that I'm gone or making me feel guilty for uprooting us to move somewhere new and then being gone for half the time. He has done nothing but encourage and nurture me. No matter where our lives go from here, I will forever be in awe of this man I married. He shows me every day what it is to put yourself aside and the other person first. 

Work: It has been one of the hardest lessons I've learned, but I'm finally starting to separate my identity from my job. I will be a workaholic if I have the opportunity, especially in an industry like coffee, where your colleagues become your family. It's so easy for these lives to blend together, and while it's wonderful at first because you have love everything in your life, the lines quickly become so blurred that you never feel at home and have trouble focusing on anything. I don't know if I explained that well, but that's what happened with me. A mistake at work immediately feels like a failure in life, and an issue at home prevents me from doing well at work. Boundaries are eliminated, sleep disappears and it all takes a toll on the relationships in my life. Like most people, I want to do work that matters. I want to do well in my job. I want to make the world better. But when I start defining myself by standards placed on me by outside forces, and by myself, my world crumbles. I'm learning to leave work at work. To turn my Blackberry off before I enter my home, or even leave it in the car. It seems like a small thing, but it is a way of mentally keeping that world out of my home, and equally, keeping that stress from infiltrating my home. Some people are able to do this without something silly like hiding a Blackberry, but I'm not. And that has to be okay with me. 

Myself: Tying in with both my marriage and my work, this has been a huge year of learning grace. Ryan never complained about us moving to Texas, but in the midst of all my travel and work I was wracked with guilt that I had uprooted us. He had a much harder time adjusting than I did, and I didn't know how to fix that while I was gone all the time. And while I was learning a new job, on a much larger scale than I had ever experienced, there was no room for failure in my mind. I think this is normal for most people- no one wants to fail, but the issue comes with your definition of failure. My definition of failure quickly became anything other than perfection, and when you're, say, learning how to make a budget on the scale of 70 cafes, this is impossible. So I learn to breathe through the anxiety, do the best I can, ask so many questions and admit when I have messed something up. It's hard, it hurts, and it is my least favorite thing. But it's making a difference in every area of my life. 

Family: I miss my family more than I can express. I hate that I'm missing out on Josiah's wee-ball games, or Stella saying her first words, or my name-to-soon-be-revealed-niece's birth. I remember growing up far away from aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, and I never liked it. So I'm also learning to take time off and take deliberate vacations, planned very far in advance. 26 days. 

This year has forever changed my life, and my marriage, just as I suspected it would. I just never expected how everything would change. I'm pretty excited to see what the next year has in store. 

May!?

Can you believe it is already May? Of 2013? I'm still blown away by it. So much has happened in the past year. Ryan and I moved to Texas, we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary, Ryan turned 25(!) and in two short weeks we'll have another niece. Life is moving fast. So fast that it makes me nervous, as much as I love it.

This short little blip of a blog post is just to ask for prayers (from whoever reads this) for my little family as we face big decisions together. We pray for wisdom and rely on the reassurance of constant grace.