Admire Your Own

The name of this blog is something that I've mentioned briefly in the past, but I think it is worth revisiting. I often remind Michael (and myself) that comparison is the thief of joy. To that end, I often try to redirect my thoughts when I find myself feeling envious of what others have, or feeling like what we have isn't enough.
1-2 years ago it seemed like all of my very close girlfriends were announcing pregnancies, I was genuinely excited for them and not one bit jealous. Michael and I were on a different path, he was living two hours away and going back to school full time, we were living on one income in two different households. Pregnancy was not on our minds, we were focused on learning to navigate the first year of marriage without living together, learning to prioritize communication because phone calls, text messages and Facetime were they only ways we got to connect some weeks. We knew we wanted children, but we weren't there yet.
If I may toot my own horn for a second, although long distance marriage was hard, and frustrating and sometimes sad, we rocked it. I mean seriously, our marriage is so much stronger and we are so much happier as a couple than we were before Michael moved. Living apart was great perspective, we put aside a lot of small stuff in the name of enjoying the little time we had together, we learned to communicate like champs because we had to, and we made some big, tough decisions as Team Butzen-not Lauren and Michael. I hope our season of long distance marriage is over, but I sure am grateful for it.
After we hit our stride and Michael was settling into the second (and final) year of nursing school in Augusta we decided we were ready to start thinking about growing our family. I stopped taking birth control in June of last year knowing that if I got pregnant at any point after that Michael would either be about to graduate or recently graduated. We were pumped! For 11 months I tracked my cycle and ovulation and we tried our best to make things happen despite living apart. According to my calculations, we missed our prime time window to conceive during 3 months (or less) of that entire 11 month time frame. I felt like we were doing everything right, hitting the right times, keeping track of everything on my end, but after a year nothing had happened.
We attended baby showers and one year old birthday parties for our friends and while it crushed me on the inside I kept reminding myself that we were on our own path, we had to admire the things that we did have-Michael graduated, we were living together, our time was coming, we just had to keep the faith.

Perspective

Earlier this week I pulled up to my condo as my neighbor, let’s call her Cathy, was unloading her car. We exchanged pleasantries and she mention that she was just getting in from Gainesville. She teaches in Athens, her husband lives and works in Gainesville, so she lives here Monday-Thursday, much like our living arrangement. I told her that Michael moved to Augusta and so we were in the same boat for the next two years.  At that, Cathy smiled and said that she and her husband had been living like that for 15 years. Fif.teen. Years.

She shared some wise words, and I was comforted in the fact that 1. We were not alone (I already knew this, but it was nice to be reminded by someone who lives right next door) and 2. People make these things work for decades and are no worse for the wear, four semesters of school is a blip on the radar of our lifetime together (again, something I knew but felt good to be reminded of).

Cathy said that being apart is hard, so you have to “really make your time together special.” Yes, I agree. We do the best we can and often times Michael has to study but he is so good about cramming it in during the week so we can have a good chunk of uninterrupted time.

She also said she has made the weeknights time for herself. She said “I’m writing a lot” I replied, “yeah I’ve been running a lot.” And I have been, and it is making me happy. Not having Michael waiting for me at home means if I blow off a run it’s just another hour at home alone with the cats and Netflix, so I might as well get it in.

Thank goodness we aren’t planning on doing this long term and we see each other and chat all the time. I am constantly reminded of the people whose significant other’s are deployed, or far away. We are so fortunate.

Disgusta

This was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a while. I didn’t spend 90% of it in a quiet room watching Netflix with my headphones in not interacting with anyone, so it was an automatic win (I use Michael’s studying as a crutch to not have much of a social life of my own).

Friday I helped Val clean her rental house for new tenants moving in. It was sweaty work and to reward ourselves we went to dinner at Cali N Tito’s, it was awesome to sit outside on a summer night and have a drink and hang out with my best friend. From there we ventured downtown. I haven’t been downtown after 10:00pm in 100 years and I was wearing sweaty gross clothes and generally feeling very out of place. We had a super fun time and didn’t make it home until almost 3:00am, but I did manage to put off an awkward, I don’t know how to talk to people, we are both married and not 19 anymore vibe.               

7:15 came early and I was grateful that the hangover gods were kind to me. I worked until 12:30 and met Michael and his family for lunch at Big City Bread and he brought Stella! I love when she can go everywhere with us. A delicious fried egg sammy was inhaled and I got to catch up with my in laws. From there we boogied West to Augusta to check out the apartment that Michael is going to be living in. The apartment is beautiful and I am going to be spending a lot of time at the pool.

On Sunday we hit the town to explore and see the campus. Every time I have mentioned that Michael is moving to Augusta for nursing school I get a lot of “oh, DISgusta” but I’d checked it out online and knew they had a downtown area, and it was on the water, a lot of medical students, the Masters etc. etc. and I was hoping to get there and drive around and think “see, it’s not that bad!” But that was not the case. It was disgusting. Run down and dirty and not well maintained. It looked unloved and abandoned and I am thoroughly confused as to why. We will do some more exploring and make the best of it when I visit, but the reality is that we have been spoiled by Athens. Oh, good ole Athens. 

It might come true

When the phone call about nursing school came we were both kind of dumbstruck. I mean, Yes! Of course! Hooray! But also, Wait? What? Where?!?! The nice lady from Augusta who just called and dropped a bomb on us said she needed an answer by noon the next day. So we told her we would call her back. We spent that night thinking through all of the implications of him accepting the spot.

He will be moving for two years and we haven’t even been married a year.

We will be supporting two households with one income instead of one household with two incomes.

We have a dog and 2 cats.

We spent the first six months of marriage figuring out how to be married and live together well and we’d finally hit a sweet spot.

We will be apart.

When Michael and I met in Alabama I was coming off of the roughest year of my life. I’d moved to Kentucky for graduate school and was faced with a lot of challenges. I was the only one in my program and had a hard time meeting people and making friends. I was almost 500 miles from home and had only ever lived 65 miles away before. Graduate school was so so hard and due to unforeseen circumstances my roommate had to move home so I was living alone. I felt very alone and lost and I was very depressed. The first night we found out about nursing school my biggest fear was that living alone would mean that I would feel lost and confused and depressed like I had when I was in Kentucky. I couldn’t bear the thought of pulling onto our street and seeing an empty driveway. I have since realized that this situation is nothing like that one, but boy did those fears come rushing back initially.

Michael called the next morning to accept the position and was met with yet another hurdle. He had taken Statistics and Microbiology as the school recommended but did not take Chemistry 2, because they had not mentioned it. He had taken it in the past and gotten a D, which was not acceptable for the program. They apologized for the mistake and told them he would no longer be accepted. We were crushed. But Michael was not going down without a fight. With the help of his advisor he learned that if he could take and pass the CLEP exam in Biology 1 and 2 that score, combined with other science classes on his transcripts would fulfill the Chem 2 requirement.

So, in addition to course work and upcoming final exams in Stat and Micro he was tasked with studying for, scheduling, taking, and passing the CLEP. He was admitted to the program provisionally pending his class grades and test score. And he proceeded to study without ceasing for two weeks.

He got an A in Statistics and passed his CLEP yesterday! The Micro final is next Thursday and Friday. I could be more proud of my husband. At this point we are 99% sure that he will be moving to Augusta in 2 weeks! All of his hard work and determination paid off, but seriously, you should see the dent in the couch where he sits to study :) 

Be careful what you wish for

I like blogging, but often feel uninspired, or directionless. I flip flop between “no one is reading, whats the point” and “I don’t want anyone to read anyway, its really just for me” or “am I writing about life? Or exercise? Or what?”

I blogged about my high hopes for the Third of July and it rained and was a bummer. And then I lost steam. And life got complicated. Really, really complicated. I have debated about writing about it because I do not want to compromise my personal security, but I figure everyone who reads already knows what’s going on and also my address, so if they want to sneak into my house and rob/hurt me while my husband and dog are living 2 hours away they already have the means to do so.

My husband is a dreamer. We even read a quote about dreamers and realists at our wedding. Since we met 3+ years ago he has had a lot of big dreams for his career and our family. He has dreamed of moving out west, or becoming a medic, and toyed with the idea of joining the military. A little over a year ago we stumbled upon the idea of nursing. He is a great people person, fantastic under pressure, and nursing has a lot of different specialties and venues for practice which is good for his tendency to get bored once he has accomplished a challenge.

 He decided to apply to a satellite nursing campus in Athens for a school that was located in Augusta. In May we found out that he was waitlisted and would not know if he got a spot in the program until June. In the meantime, he was told to take Statistics and Microbiology to fulfill the prerequisite requirements. This was super frustrating because he was taking demanding classes for a program he might not get in to, and had to drop several clients at work to make time for class. The classes also required a significant amount of devoted, quiet, study time with internet access for homework and quizzes over the weekend. This meant no lake trips, camping trips, or any travel at all really this summer. But, it would all be worth it if it meant he could get in to nursing school. Unfortunately, the end of June came and the phone call didn't.

To say we were bummed would be an understatement. We had 2 weeks of searching for what he wanted to do, coming up with and weighing options, and generally feeling lost. Then, on Wednesday, July 17^th the call came. He was offered a spot off of the waiting list and into the nursing program! ….At the Augusta campus. The good news we’d been hoping for finally came, with strings attached.