Mason is home. It has been almost a week since his return. This week has gone by super fast. Actually the past 6 months went by pretty quickly (although it may not have felt like that at the time).
So the countdown is over. Over... until the next countdown begins. Because there will always be some other countdown, at some point.
I am sure I counted down before meeting Mason, but I don't really recall any of them. My first memory of a "countdown" was my senior year of high school. Mason was going to school in New York and we were slated to see each other for Christmas break... very big deal! He was flying out to California to spend Christmas with me and my family. It was all I could think about. I can't believe I didn't fail that semester because I can't recall anything that I learned in those months but I certainly remember creating a "page a day" counter and Xing out my calendar as each day passed.
Since then I have counted down to : my graduation, his graduation, summer break, end of college, my move to Charleston, his commissioning, our wedding, his training, more of his training, receiving orders, first baby, more training, his return from deployment, second baby, more deployment, getting pregnant, more training, third baby and now MORE TRAINING!!!
When I am alone and counting down the days I find myself developing odd little coping techniques. I started doing this when I was pregnant with Braden and waiting! I would count the multi vitamins left (50) and then how ever many were in a new bottle (100) and then make mental note " I have to go through this first bottle and get through 1/2 of the next" until the baby comes.
It was a way of counting and coping with out counting... if that makes sense.
Like a pregnancy, Mason's absences are too long to countdown every single day (179 days to go UGH) so I try no to think about it. But yet, in my obsessive compulsive brain I have to have some semi-conscience way to calculate the length of time. So, I count toilet paper rolls, shampoo bottle usage, dish detergent, Church visits, lawns mowed.....
By the last 2 weeks, you are back to counting EVERYDAY, so you have by then forgotten all your little trick counters. It isn't until you put the paper towel roll on, that you realized that the last time you did this you were waiting... and now no waiting... you're THERE (where ever there is)... LIFE.... smack dab in the middle of life... no waiting no counting.
4 comments:
love this post. one thing driving me mad right now is no concept of how long I'm waiting. The long range counts don't help. I know it'll be before this bottle of vitamins runs out, but it's a huge bottle. Will it be before the next order of groceries comes? Before the hot snap at the end of the week? Before the 4th of July? Please, just not _on_ the 4th. I hate this waiting. I'm not a good waiter.
Still, congrats on not waiting, yourself.
No more counting for a while, J. :)
And I used to do the same thing... bottles of shampoo, fill-ups at the gas pump...
Talking about countdowns, I am definitely on one to be "Leaving On A Jet Plane" so to speak very soon! Mom, Dad, Lindsey & I all leave for Yellowstone July 7th for a whole month and won't be back until August 5th. I love rain y'all and being a country girl I would never complain about having too much of it. But with as much as we've had lately it's like we live in east Texas instead of west. Not only have we looked forward to going all year but especially now with all the rain still coming, we're gonna have to leave Merkel for a month just to get away from the rain. So I can definitely understand the countdown part for sure. See y'all when I get back!
Starting tomorrow we just have 4 days left because we have decided to leave a day early on Friday the 6th instead of Saturday the 7th. We're really ready to go and can't wait! See ya!
Post a Comment