Yeah, I know it's kind of cliché. To start a blog at the beginning of a New Year. But who cares? I'm not doing it because it's cliché, but because there are a lot of feelings and thoughts in this little heart and mind that might benefit someone, somewhere. Or maybe it'll just benefit me to get them out. Either way, it's worth it.
This past year has had a lot of ups and downs. I entered 2011 as a newly engaged woman, and my fiancé, a Cavalry Scout in the U.S. Army, was stationed in Germany, 4,000 miles away. I didn't see him until a week before the wedding, in June of 2011. So when I say I was responsible for all of the wedding planning, I mean I was responsible for all of the wedding planning! Thank goodness I had my mom to help me. (Okay, I'll be honest. I think she did more of the work than I did!) June comes. I marry the love of my life. He whisks me away to Germany, where we spend a month together. And then, he is deployed to Afghanistan and I return to the States. Some way to start a marriage, huh?
I have survived five months of deployment so far. I keep busy by working full-time as an assistant teacher at a learning center. It is fast-paced and stressful, but there is something so joyful and pure about being around children; they are genuine, spontaneous, curious, and carefree. And it's infectious. I am truly blessed to have a job that I enjoy and to be working with people who are not just coworkers, but friends. So while 40 hours of my week are taken up by my job, the other 128 are consumed by: investing in relationships with family & friends, Skyping my husband as much as I can, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, watching T.V., spending too much time online, spending not enough time reading, and sleeping.
It's unique, this life I live. It's different than other people's. But then, doesn't everyone feel as though their life is vastly different from everyone else's? Others' lives, others' happiness, others' issues, become a mixed blur in contrast to the vivid colors of the pain we feel, the happiness we experience, the things we are dealing with. Our hearts are woven from the fabric of our own deep emotions, while the emotions of others are simply paintings on a wall that we yearn to understand, all the while knowing there is so much meaning the artist longs to convey that slips past our clawing minds. As I look over the course of 2011, I see changes, gains, and losses. I withdrew from college, got married, visited Germany, moved into an apartment. I was blessed with a loving husband, saw real castles & tasted strange food while overseas, and gained new friends. But, I also said goodbye to my new husband as he was deployed to a war zone a month after we married, experienced the fading of friendships and relationships, and have dealt with the loneliness of being an Army wife during a deployment. And this latter group are the ashes. The ashes of things that were once beautiful and vibrant, but have lost their life in some way or another. At first, I didn't know what to do with the ashes except to grieve them. To kick, scream, cry, mourn, fight against the loss, be angry, and cry some more. Eventually, though, I came to realize that things become ashes in our lives -- we experience loss and pain -- so new life can be ushered in. So we can take that next step forward, inhale new smells, and see new colors. The ashes we once mourned are given new life as they become something new, and something beautiful. They are ugly to the present eye, and it is okay to let oneself feel the pain of that ugliness....but only for so long. We must learn to see the beauty of the ashes in the midst of our grief. Because while they may seem ugly now, they are beautiful....because they have the potential to become beautiful.