Pete and Me

To be perfectly honest, all has not been peaceful on the homefront lately. How could it be, really? We moved to Maryland and I cried nearly every day I was there. And I didn't hide it. I cried to him. I cried and cried and cried. And I puked nearly as much as I cried, because I was so sick during the pregnancy with Elizabeth. So we get her home from the hospital and I told him, "I love you but I can't be here anymore. I need my village. I need to go home."

This prince of a man went to interview for another job. When he was on his way to that interview, he got into a crazy car wreck and but for a few inches and some serious heads-up driving, would have been gone. Forever. That reality is one I continue to digest on a daily basis. After getting the call, I loaded three kids, one of whom was on a nasogastric feeding tube that had to be dangled from that little hook in the backseat that holds your dry cleaning and whatnot, into my oh-so-cool (and really, it is) minivan and picked him up from Harrisburg, PA, where his car remained. We drove back home that day to find the shingles of our roof blowing into the driveway. Seriously? Hadn't we been through enough?

Apparently not. We listed our house on a Friday in April and I drove to NJ with the kids that Sunday to see "the house." This house, the one in which we are currently living. I loved it. I bid on it. I bought it. Pete agreed, said yes, trusted me. And here we are.

We sold our house in the worst housing market in decades in a period of 30 days. He got the new job, after managing to get back up to interview for it without getting into a car wreck. And so we went for it. We took a loss on the house in Maryland and paid too much for the house in New Jersey. But we went for it, believing in fate and things happening for a reason.

So we've been here a month, and Pete's started the new job. He is so busy and under a tremendous amount of stress, but I believe that he is happy with this new company and with the amount of responsibility and input he has. And I am happier than I have ever been. I've caught up with my friends, given the kids oodles of playdates and friends to see again. We've run errands to all of the familiar places and had our family in and out of our house as if we had a revolving door put in place. Things are great.

So why all of the tension and stress between us? Why does he believe that I'm slacking off and not pulling my weight around here? Why do I feel like he's a monster once he's finished his 10-12 hour work day who just wants to yell at everyone? Why are the kids acting like caged, uncivilized animals?

Because...everything has changed. Again.

We've gone from place to place, house to house, state to state, school to school, job to job, lack of routine to lack of routine. So what do you do when you realize that you are settled when you have never been settled before in your life?

You lash out at the ones you love the very most in the world.

The kids are coming down from a most insane roller coaster ride that has taken up pretty much their entire childhood thus far. We've only been married seven years and we've moved four times and lived in two states. What does that say for the stability of the world we've given to our children? Not much. It tells them to live in suspense, and continue to wait for the proverbial shoe of change to drop. And Pete and I are exhausted, by life, by our roles, our jobs...by each other. I've spent a lot of time this week in both of our sets of shoes, appreciating both of our sides and wondering if we'll get back to zero. Will we find that equilibrium we want, and how hard will it be to happen upon it?

Then I walked out of Lizzie's room tonight, pulling her door shut quietly behind me with her tucked soundly into her bed, and peeked in on Pete and Erin and Meghan. He was supposed to be tucking them in, and bedtime has been a major point of contention lately, with me wanting peace and him wanting quiet, and both of us only acheiving chaos. I was nervous. I was afraid to even look in. Would there be more punishment and yelling? Would this be yet another cog in the "This Family Doesn't Look So Good" wheel?

No.

It would be the beginning of the next chapter. The chapter of peace. The chapter of quiet. The chapter where Daddy is telling stories about the dinosaurs that used to roam the earth, standing between their beds with little girls staring at him with amazement. He was C-3PO and they were the Ewoks, listening to tales of days long ago, when none of us were here, but clearly, Daddy knows all about it. And with that scene, my frustrations fell away into the God awful shag carpet in the hallway that we need to replace, and my love for him came welling back up inside of me like it did when I saw him for the first time fourteen years ago, when I was a child myself. With that I know that we will be ok. I can see that in the eyes of two of our daughters as they watch their father, the man with whom I made them, as he lights up all of our worlds and continues to hold us all together.