The familiarity of uncertainty

This blog before anything else is the memoir of our lives, a story of our love, a daily baby book for Sam and Peter and soon for baby girl. It is catalog of triumphs and mistakes, not to be forgotten, a place to stash our most precious memories. A way to put our lives in perspective when we read back to discover just how far we've come. We carefully recount the times in our lives that we feel we have successfully (and unsuccessfully) navigated, certain we would never care to re-live, but appreciate them for all that they taught us and for the stepping stones that they provided. Even as I read back on these moments I wonder how that was even me that wrote those lines, they are now so far removed from my conscious. You feel certain that things could never be that hard again and in some ways they never could be. We've learned from our past, but there are some things that are simply beyond our control and most certainly in the hands of someone greater. Maybe we didn't get the full lesson in round one, so we are given round two...

. . .

Two years ago this March, Paul and I received a call that both pushed and pulled our family to its limits. Perched in our freshly painted bedroom on the coldest week I'd ever experienced in our Jupiter town-home, I snuggled tiny Pete, just four weeks old, in our fluffy, white, down comforter while Sam and Paul whiled away the hours of nothingness, joblessness, sleeplessness, and uncertainty, by pretending to trek up and down a mountain (where we wished we could be) on our newly laid, hand-carved, wooden staircases...the last of the big money, we naively never guessed we'd shortly be without. With Sam in the hiking backpack, the guys delivered me coffee and tiny diapers throughout the day.

Upon hanging up the phone, decisions had to be made, both out of desperation and a rare opportunity to select our dreams from the fanned out lining of a gypsy jacket of jewels. Shortly thereafter, bottles of tears were shed, bunches of boxes were packed, moving men were fed while Sam played at Nanny's and Pete was soothed to the sounds of tearing packing tape. Too many painful goodbyes were said. We packed up our life, our boys and our courage and we left the only house we'd ever known as a family and as a family we drove blindly, but certainly, together to our new life in the Foreign Service.

Shortly after we arrived, from our 18th story perch, we struggled to categorize lists of places throughout the world that seemed perfect, doable and those unimaginable to bear for two years together or apart. Late at night over cups of wine and in between feedings, we submitted our list and we waited...

We struggled to find meaning in our new life, to learn, to day dream and to just try to imagine where the next two years would take us. I sleepwalked through weeks of depression, Paul and I shared many emotional challenges while navigating our new life and thank God we shared (as always) much grace between each other in those eight months. The boys and I would bid Paul farewell each morning before his walk to FSI to build the foundation for our dreams of world travel. He bid me farewell to learn to be a new me: A full-time mom, a city dweller, a free lance artist, a mom of two and Foreign Service wife, which is not at all unlike entering a totally different and strange world. I pushed through it all with the chance meeting of a nurse practioner who'd been in my shoes before and just may have been an angel, one great friend, an amazing husband and reassurance that this would be the last time we'd ever be in a situation quite this hard. Ever. Again. This was unique and could simply not repeat itself. Or so we thought.

. . .

As I type this I sit on that same cozy bed all the way in Brasilia, Brazil, with my babies snuggled in their own beds in the next room and Paul napping soundly on the sofa during our long Carnaval holiday weekend. We made it. We are a continent away and the world goes on, just as we knew it would. Our family is happy, just as we have strived for it to be and our marriage grows more deeply and in unspeakable ways daily. Our new baby girl is due to make her appearance in just a weeks time. We have traveled and explored. We are rich in newer and more wonderful ways from this leap of faith than we ever thought possible, but in the background, visions of the past creep their way into my dreams at night and by day I struggle through, yet again, some of the same uncertainty and fear I had two years ago even though or even because we've done it all before.

We received our bid list for our next posting last week. We're just nine short months from saying goodbye to Brazil and most painfully, goodbye to our friends and all the wonderful memories of this home. As we sit around the dining room table nap-time after nap-time, late nights and in betweens and sketch images in our minds of potential days spent in Kathmandu, La Paz and Paris, a tiny girl kicks me from within, both a reminder of the joy that is to come and the reality of the uncertain cycle of Foreign Service life that is about to begin again. Just as we knew it would, just not quite as astonishingly similar.

We've done this all before right? What were the chances we'd ever do it again with a newborn baby? What were the chances that the list would be delayed and that we'd turn it in until just a few weeks after a baby is born? That we'd be waiting for answers after sleepless nights and between the helpless cries of a newborn baby. What were the chances that at just eight months after having a baby that we'll likely, once again, be in DC with Paul adding another story to our love of adventure in a classroom at FSI, while I sketch dreams, from temporary housing amidst the cries of toddlers and infants, of our next two years in a place I can barely dream of? Surprisingly the chances were better than we thought.

It is all the same, but all very different, too. Although that doesn't seem to completely ease my fears. Sometimes I think I catch a hint of worry in Paul's usually calm and reassuring eyes, too. Wondering how close this will bring us to the edge again. Not that we'd ever let each other fall, but instead steady one another on the stable ground and remind the other to look out beyond the jagged cliffs and onto the beautiful horizon. Just like we always do.

The next nine months will seem a blur and my goal is to remain as present as possible, to enjoy each moment in this beautiful and perfect place that was selected just for us. To cherish every moment with the people that surround and to trust, as December rolls around too quickly again, we'll find ourselves with bags packed, all our things packed within a mountain of red suitcases, tiny maps of unfamiliar places in our pockets, arms filled with three tiny bodies we've built with love, clasp our hands and move on. For better of for worse. Together.