I Married a School-Teacher, and Got a Cop. . .Blog Day #13

You know the cliche "When life throws you lemons, make lemonade."? Well, what do you do when life throws you a pickle? And I don't mean those cute little ones that you can eat one at a time. I mean one of those pickles that only fit one to a giant jar. What are you supposed to do with that?

We are coming up to my husband's 5 year anniversary of being an officer of the California Highway Patrol.  Prior to graduating, he lived at the academy for an intense 7 months. I had three toddlers and one baby on the way. Zoe was born during break-in, during which his FTO was very understanding and let him come home for a couple weeks while I recuperated. But while my husband passed his break-in period without having to repeat any phases, and he got through his first year of probation, I felt like I just finished my break-in period.

Let's go back a little to the man I married 10, almost 11, years ago. We were fresh out of college, working with childen with disabilities, and starting our family early. While I was taking care of an infant for the first time, the Hubbie decided to go to credential school at night and take a job as a History/Government teacher at Woodland Christian High School. Oh, and he was Davis High's head wrestling coach. And did I mention we had a baby at home?

If you read between the lines, you would know this: The man never slept.

Since high schools start insanely early, he was out early in the morning to get to work before the kids got there. Then he would hop over to Davis and work with more teenagers, this time teaching them how to wrestle. After practice, he would either make the drive to Sacramento for classes or he would come home and grade papers and lesson plan. Add in the usual drama at work, drama with parents, drama with teachers, drama with class credits, etc. . .And hospital bills (which someone soo generously helped us with, knowing how big our paycheck was), a crazy nursing wife and a baby who cried to settle into her naps. 

To say the least, the man was busy. And stressed out.  I haven't even mentioned a Bible study we attended and church on Sundays. It became clear that, while he loved the kids he was around and developed special relationships with some of them that are still close today, teaching was not something he would be able to do for the rest of his working days. Not in a life-fulfilling, contentment-causing, clearly-a-calling kind of way. 

So he applied for the California Highway Patrol. He entered the academy in November of '05. The academy was the easiest part on my end. I could see there was a renewed purpose, discipline and challenge. He was finally "home". All he had to do was pass and make it to the end without injuries.  Piece of cake. . .And he was so nice when he came home on weekends because he missed us. Plus he didn't have to deal with a potty training boy who smeared poop all over the walls.

He did graduate and I got to pin his badge on his uniform. He was finally allowed to be called "Officer." I threw him a party with all our friends. I was 7 1/2 months pregnant with my fourth child and was a great wife that day. I threw the party, then spent most of the night between two puking kids. Then I spent the next week apologizing to half of the party that got the stomach flu from cute little baby Charlotte.  Thankfully, the Hubbie didn't get it and was still able to report to Castro Valley the next Monday.

And that's how I started my spouse break-in period.  It's a long process of adjusting to changing shifts, changing personalities, changing sleep patterns (his, not mine) and changing outlooks on life (his, not mine). There is an alarming amount of wives who don't make it, or who are so hurt and embittered by this period of time that they never recover. Well, I think I've made it. I'll share what I think helped me through, and what will help me make it to retirement. . .

If I were to be graded on my "performance" these last 5 years, here's what the list of items would be:
1) "When he's working, he's working. When he's home, he's home." Knowing that the schedule is just a guideline. Treating workdays as 24 hour shifts. Expecting overtime shifts. Communicating well when you need a break from the extra hours. Having a good attitude about court on RDOs.  Planning without him, and treating his presence at activities as a bonus. Always having a back-up plan without being untrusting. Being gracious when graveyard shifts means adding an extra workday to the schedule for sleeping.
2) When he's at work, he can take people to jail for not obeying. And if they threaten his life, he can shoot them. Remembering the posture he must take at work, and giving him a little wiggle room to be bossy. Allowing him to help and take charge because that is the part of his personality that makes him successful at his job. Not undermining him by challenging his authority in front of the children. Communicating calmly and in private when conflict arises from strong personality or personalities. Communicating with carefully chosen and specific words and clear emotional expression. Prohibiting husband bashing and speaking only positively about him in public.
3)When one works with "dirtbags" all shift long, one can become jaded with life. Everyone becomes a "dirtbag." Expecting him to sometimes be suspicious, closed, and over-protective. Expecting him to go through anti-social periods of time. Extending grace when more expletives are used than comfortable to listening ears. Keeping one's own attitude in check when his is being a party-pooper.


Anyway, I totally can't even pretend that I am scoring high on all of these. I often have a stinky attitude when he needs to relax and do nothing for his days off. I often feel burnt out after weeks of single parenting. I often feel a little bitter going to family gatherings by myself. I admit to feeling so spent that I'm annoyed at bedtime when the four year old won't let me leave the room until I give her more kisses and squeezes and hugs.

But, as they said at the academy, "It's not just a job, it's a lifestyle."  Whacked out schedules, crazy sleeping patterns, Type A to the 100th power personalities, potty mouths, etc. . .Just take it in stride.

It's been 5 years for me. . .I can't say that I love it all of the time. But I made it. I put in 100% and will continue to do so. I pray and pray for him every shift and trust that he's in God's care. I remind myself that he is doing what he has been called to do, and I've been called to support him and be the other half. I don't expect him to be the school-teacher anymore. He is a cop. And I am his wife.

Only 25 more years to go. . ..

Much more than the Bathroom Scale, Blog Day #12

So last fall, after weaning my last baby, I decided it was time to kick it into high gear and get to BK (Before Kids) weight. That would mean I needed to lose a shocking total of 35 pounds. It seemed so high since my ethnicity states that I should be skinny as a rail, cook a mean fried rice and play piano like a maniac. Well, one out of three isn't bad.

This was back in September. School was in full force, football season time consuming, and ballet was a 40 minute drive into Sacramento three times a week.  I didn't know how to start any kind of exercise routine and just tried to get in one long nighttime walk with the dog a week.  And I tried to stay away from the refined sugars and refined flours.  Then the series of setbacks began.

First was California's lousy economy. My husband's job is an essential, so no matter how much lobbyists want to do away with them, we will always have employment. The setback, though, was that any kind of overtime coming from other state-run budgets was dried up.  No overtime = no extras = no cushion = bad for an over-spender.  And since healthy food is slightly more expensive and constantly needing replenishing, I had to make cut backs almost as soon as I started.

The next bunch of setbacks were the holidays.  Specifically: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  The four self-indulging and feasting holidays of the year, all lined up in a row.  Candy, more candy, cupcakes, turkey, pies, cheesecakes, tamales, cobblers, potatoes of all kinds, jello salad, cookies, milk, pasta salads, Happy Birthday Jesus tacos with plenty of sour cream and cheese. . .I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

It's too bad that, at the time, I did more than think about it. I partook...And gained around 10 pounds.

*sigh, As if I wasn't big enough. And to add insult to injury, sometime in this 10 pound weight gain I got a mosquito bite on my neck under my chin.  As if I needed another chin. . .

So with all the New Year's resolution hoopla, I resolved to get myself in shape and spend 2011 getting back to BK weight. One of my good friends suggested the Couch to 5k program. Running? I had never run in my life.  Even in the peak of swim season as a high schooler (and I was a pretty decent swimmer) I could barely run a mile. But I have many friends who run for exercise. And I know many women with grown kids who look fabulous because they took up running. So I downloaded a schedule and before my mind could change itself, I started.

I was all for it at first. I am the type of person who gets fired up and jumps right into things. So when I completed that first 5 minute walk-2 minute run- 5 minute walk day, I thought, "I can do this!"

So running and cutting calories became my obsession.  I especially got pumped when I got new shoes, my knee healed, and I could run 2.5 miles without gasping for air. I ran a 5k and had fun. And the only thing that had to give way was the housework. Who needs to do housework, anyway?

I hit a total weight loss of 20 pounds. I started getting compliments from people who noticed. My clothes were fitting better and I could go buy new clothes without feeling like a rhino in the fitting room. Not to mention, I was way less jiggly during my runs. Yay!

But exercising and changing eating habits is exhausting. You have to constantly think about running, otherwise you lose motivation and procrastinate.  You have to constantly think about food so that you mind your portions and read all the labels.  The food part is hard, because the more you exercise, the hungrier you get. And when you are cooking for small people who need to eat multiple times throughout the day, you tend to have little bits of food all day long until, before you realize, you've gone almost 300 calories over-budget. Great for maintaining weight if you burn that much during exercising, which I do. But bad if you still have 20 pounds left to lose.

So I've hit a plateau. And it didn't help that I had hosted a delicious feast to celebrate the end of Lent, the greatest holiday of the year, Easter. Then proceeded to eat leftover ham, potatoes, cheesecake and carrot cake the whole next week. And my husband switched to day shift on weekends, throwing my running schedule off.  Argh!

Now I'm struggling to keep the momentum going. I get the runs in, but there is hardly any time to cross-train. So my muscles are very tired. The weather is against me, too. The rain was fine and the cold was bearable. But lately it has been crazy windy and now it is getting hot. My run yesterday had to be cut short because 1)I tried to run way faster than I am capable of maintaining and 2) it was darned hot and I hadn't fueled and hydrated enough during the day to compensate.

There is so much to this route to a healthy temple (ie body). I can understand why people resort to pills and fake milkshakes and frozen diet dinners.

But instead of the easy ways out, I am choosing balance. I eat food that is the way God intended: real. Real fruit, real juice, real eggs, real wheat, real sugar, etc. . .It's such a more efficient way to get what I need to run 11 miles a week. If I am in the habit of eating the right ingredients in all my yummy food, and keep the portions reasonable, I can have the occasional Costco chocolate cake or cheesy enchiladas and such. I just don't touch the label, haha. . .

And as far as exercise, balance is the key again.  Lately my body is crying out for sleep. As I'm typing, I am emitting the pungent odor of Tiger Balm because of a knot in my neck. I've had the knot for 6 days now, giving me a slight headache for those days.  I can't seem to get rid of it. It's not a coincidence that I have gone to bed no earlier than midnight all week, it's been very warm outside and I've kept my running schedule anyway. Balance here would have been listening better to my body and skipping one run to rest and let my muscles heal and catch up.

Balance. Another one of those simple, yet so hard, concepts to apply. It seems so easy in words: Eat right and in good portions, plus exercise and rest according to how your body feels, plus sleep at night. But I find that I'm always tipping the scales in one way or another.

*sigh.  I guess the scale in the bathroom is not the only scale I need to pay attention to. . . .

Stay tuned, I'll update on the weight loss towards the end of my 40 day blogging blitz. . .I'll have run a 10K race by then. . .

The Blinding Storm of Depression, Blog Day #11

This is a story of my depression, told in a unique way. Because this whole blog, to sum it up, is about the heaviness and struggle that is more emotional and spiritual rather than physical. The physical aspect is simple to address and attack. But it is only a small part of the picture. Here I describe the battle field, and the surest way to hold your own.


Sometimes I just want to be out of my own head. I just don't want to know all the intimate details of my past. I know I am a broken person with a history of selfishness and rash decisions made by emotions. I don't need to hear about it all day long. I wish there could be spiritual earplugs, or a mute button. I won't say that I hear audible voices in my head, but there is definitely a nagging little me in my mind that wants to wave a neon sign that says, "Failure!"
There are times I wish I was telepathic. Do other people think the way I do? Are other people plagued with replays of past conversations, with spoken words you wish you didn't say, expressing opinions you no longer have? Do images of past mistakes and wrong decisions and bad attitudes haunt people they way they haunt me? Is anyone else bothered by their foolish pasts? Does anyone else wonder what happened to all the people they have impacted so negatively and hurtfully?

I often, by no effort on my part, am bombarded with these questions because I struggle with the pain of my past sins and current sinful patterns. My sins have been forgiven, but I still feel a dull ache in my being and I can't help but grieve the years I spent running away from God.

It is this grief that my mind, with the Enemy's prompting, uses against me.  Sometimes I come at myself with the "shame" angle. I tell myself that I will never be good enough because I will always be tainted by the decisions I made and followed through with. Kind of like an incurable spiritual STD (that just gave me the heebie jeebies)

Sometimes I come at myself with a bunch of "what ifs". "What if you just had thought things through?" "What if you had just kept your mouth shut?" "What if you really saw what God was trying to tell you instead of relying on your own feelings?" "What if you had just sought out help and prayed more?" In other words, if I had done those things in the past, I would not be such an idiot now. A lie, I know, but a powerful lie.

Perhaps the most invasive strategy I come at myself with is the "warped mirror" angle. "If you weren't so overweight, you wouldn't be so socially awkward." "People would like you more if you were prettier." "You are only mediocre in music. You should just quit." "If you were more disciplined and diligent, you wouldn't be in this predicament." "Your husband would appreciate you more if you would just get everything done."  Lies, lies, lies.

These thoughts have become the dense blizzard on the narrow path I walk on.  But I am certain I'm on the right path, even though the blizzard is beyond bitterly cold and making it impossible for me to see ahead. I know I'm on the right path because there's a rope that has been set and tied for such a storm as this. So hand over hand, one foot at a time, I hunker down and pull myself through the storm. The rope has been tied by one who loves me and cares for me. I just need to follow it until the storm passes by, or until I reach the Final Destination.

I began the Lent season in this storm. I was feeling inadequate, to say the least. Fasting from Facebook had nothing to do with my depression, but had everything to do with where I was directing my thoughts.The hours I had previously spent reading updates and thinking of what to write, I instead thought of a time 3000 years ago. This was done for me:

You might see a gruesome, humiliating death. Indeed it was. And it was done out of love. For all men. For me. It had to be done. Because I really am a broken, sinful and sometimes wayward human. Deserving of death. But instead, an innocent had to die. Yes, gruesome. But believing this and taking on the heaviness of it, the storm around me eases up. Funny how that works.

This love that was so powerful that this death was endured for me. I was a traitor, worthless, running away aimlessly. But He loved me. And still loves me. And will always love me. The lies my mind tries to tell me are no match for this love. It is this unfathomable love that pulls me through the storm.

And then this death was defeated. This man, who was God, called Jesus was not in the tomb he was placed in. He had risen. The rift between mankind and God could now be bridged. This bridge is my access to everlasting joy and love and peace and grace and mercy and all things blessed. Not that I gained this access, but just believed and trusted that this particular bridge was safe and passable. 

I follow the rope across this bridge. And the storm clears. The sun is out. I set my feet on the green grass, and rest beside quiet waters. A feeling of gratitude overwhelms me. How I want to return this great love that has saved me from the bleakest of storms.

God, thank you for your loving-kindness towards me. Help me to ignore those destructive thoughts and stay on your path where you are leading me to safety and warmth. May I be a light for others so that they, too, might have love like this.Amen.