Still married in my mind

“One hour, one day, one breath at a time.” These words seem so simple and basic, explaining time and the basic function of human survival, but when your life gets thrown into a washer with the lid slammed shut and the spin cycle started, these words become your new way of living.

Tomorrow is a stark reminder of this new living. We were supposed to be on a morning flight to the most magical place in the world (Disney World); planning started months ago, daily mapping around each park, planning character meet-and-greets, and even after-hours events that would have kept us up until the early morning hours. This trip was planned not because I wanted to go; secretly, I do love Disney, but it was because she wanted to go for her birthday. Her smile while watching the closing fireworks explode over the castle in the night sky, as I watched her sing “Happily Ever After,” this was even the last song we danced to at our wedding, just her and me, each night this breathtaking view made the long days on these sore, fragile bones worth it.

Instead, I am enjoying a week away from life, decompressing, allowing coffee and cold air to wake me up before I begin studying for my next exam. I get to watch deer walk across the open field, their breath piercing the cold morning air as the sun barely crests the treeline, starting a new journey to their next home. The younger ones herd together by their mothers, a family not knowing what the winter will bring them.

Some would see this as a win, I see it as a harsh reminder that things can change, even if you don’t wish for them or want them to happen. When God decides a change is coming, he maps this new path and places the lights along it. He prepares this long before he tells you it is coming. He spends times making sure it to bring out the best in you. He places new challenges, new successes, new lessons, and new people he wants in this next season of your life along this path placing them perfectly for the right moment.

This new path allowed me, for the first time in 6 years, to sit by myself at an empty bar, enjoy probably the best nachos in Delaware, drink a new sour IPA, and look at possible homes where the next season of my life will begin; new roots that will take hold in foreign soil, watered with happiness, and decisions of my own making. This concept is terrifying; if I’m being honest, I never would have believed, if I told my younger self 6 years ago, this is the path God would walk me down, but I are reminded he built this path for me and I must trust he is guiding me to a brighter tomorrow.

So if you get a chance to sit at an empty bar, eat good food, and drink a beer you have never tried by yourself, go for it, because those moments you take for yourself are okay and are part of his plan.