It’s Been a Minute (Roughly 3,394,080 Actually)

Or 6 years, 5 months, and 15 days.

Since this tired, passionate, angsty 25 year old (we’ll call her Baby Caitlin) of February 21, 2014 clicked “Post” to her ramblings regarding her job...she has grown up (at least a little).

Since Baby Caitlin seemed to think it was noteworthy in 2014, I will ease her mind by reporting Grown Up Caitlin also continues to get her oil checked and successfully ran that 5k (and several since, with varying levels of success). One of those baby showers was for a bright, precocious little girl named Esther who tried to charge me for the pothos clipping her mother gave me from their kitchen last month. She is a whole person now, not just the reason we were drinking some sort of alcohol out of a bottle nipple (if memory serves). I did join a gym and have kept my gym life alive and well since then.
Jonathan finished Welding School at basically the top of his class and Baby Caitlin, you still like doing things with him! So much in fact, you straight up married him. (Best “yes” of your life). I should note, your world has expanded and you no longer are excited by using Ka-Boom. 

You didn’t make it to Europe that summer but you did the summer after and I’m so proud of you for making travel a priority. You reveled in walking the streets of London with your best friend, rather than alone, like your first trip there as an indentured servant  aka traveling nanny (just kidding, mostly) and fell in love with the wonky houses along the canals of Holland.   
Travel  really does make you come alive. You’ll learn it doesn’t have to be across international waters to have value and that there was a tinge of pretentiousness in your globe trotting ways. Now you are just as overjoyed to explore the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, take in graffiti in Houston, climb the Grand Canyon, or swing on the porch in your in-laws’ back yard, breathing deep the Carolina air. It’s all beautiful to you now and I’m proud of that too. 

I, Grown Up Caitlin, still have a love/hate relationship with my job,  I am still in love (see, “ you straight up married him”), God is still CONSTANTLY trying to whip my heart into shape because I am slow and stubborn AF (see, every area of my life). And Baby Caitlin, you will never stop questioning your strengths and weaknesses, not at 31 and not at 91 and not ever because you have since learned you are a Type 1 on the Enneagram and it will help you understand the brutal manner in which you analyze yourself. And you will learn grace for yourself and those around you and you will re-learn it every damn day and jt will be hard, every damn day (see, Enneagram Type 1).

In those 6 years, 5 months, and 15 days, you’ve bought your first home with your husband,  made it your own, and looked (unsuccessfully) for a church home. Together, you’ve meandered down shorelines for sharks teeth and sometimes traipsed home in the rain empty handed. Together, you’ve taken trips with your families, trips with just each other, and too many trips to the ER. Together, you’ve discovered Jonathan hates cruises, the smell of wet nail polish and when I leave my hair all over the bathroom floor for too long. I don’t love it when he doesn’t clean up his dirty dishes, eats my half of our pizza leftovers, or slices me with his toenails in his sleep.  Together, you’ve learned that marriage takes hard work andsilliness and a steady balance of Netflix shows that we watch together AND shows we watch separately. It takes compromise (like I’ve settled for only four throw pillows on our couch and only one on our bed. JUST ONE!) and patience (like he knows I’ll have all the time in the world to get ready but still run late to fill up my to-go water cup or go to the bathroom just one more time). Together, we’ve stood by each other at weddings and funerals, through job changes, family crisis, and health scares- and held hands the whole time.

These are all things we have learned together- about each other and navigated as a team and I am so grateful. But every woman (and I would assume every man) has the journey they share with their spouse and then the other that occurs inside them, often without them realizing it. It’s not that we don’t want to share it, it’s that we don’t always understand it ourselves. 

This has always been my experience but it’s been heightened during the pandemic. Working from home for four and a half months (or 133 days) while Jonathan continues to be busier than ever with work outside the home has inevitably caused so many shifts in our household- mostly how we spend our time. I feel like it hasn’t been all bad either! I’ve walked on the beach more these last few months than I probably have the last 13 years I’ve lived here. We’ve gotten creative with how we spend time with people so we can still be socially distanced but also engaged in our community so we’ve gone blueberry picking and had BB gun competitions in our back yard and picnic birthdays by the Fort. I’ve discovered new joy in cooking at home, learned more about my kiln, taught myself how to embroider, redone our back porch, devoured so many books, finished so many projects, and really invested some energy into killing more plants (sad sigh). I love that planning time with people has to be purposeful now because just meeting out for a meal isn’t so simple these days. I’ve spent time with family and friends around a lake, on a jet ski, walking a trail, teaching them how to make guacamole, through homemade notes via snail mail, over drinks on our porch, and on miles and miles of bike rides. 

In many ways, life has never felt so refreshingly simple and authentic. But also, the big But Also...one can go crazy with such an inordinate amount of alone time. You don’t realize how much your co-workers break up the monotony of your day until you don’t have them anymore. You don’t realize how much you rely on date nights out with your spouse to make your relationship feel intentional until you can’t do it anymore. You don’t realize how much the kind word you exchanged with a gym mate or the smile you exchanged with a cashier contributes to you feeling like you’re part of the world...until those opportunities for interaction evaporate overnight. You don’t realize how much separating from your house all day make it feel like a haven when you return until you can’t leave it anymore. Then it can feel a bit like an eerily quiet prison. We were built for connection and without it our thoughts become our only company. Cue the point of resurrecting this blog: All. The. Thoughts. 

To be clear, I don’t think I have anything special to say that someone else can’t say just as well or better. But when I’ve been finding myself tempted to despair over the state of things, whether it be systemic racism or my soaring case load or the pandemic (more on all those things later), I feel God calling this part of Glennon Doyle’s, Love Warrior, to the surface of my brain:

“What I Know:

 1. What you don't know, you're not supposed to know yet. 

2. More will be revealed. 

3. Crisis means to sift. Let it all fall away and you'll be left with what matters.

 4.What matters most cannot be taken away.

 5. Just do the next right thing one thing at a time. That'll take you all the way home.”

Jonathan is the best partner I could ever ask for, but it is not his job to make me feel whole. I have incredible friends, but it is not their job to make me happy. I am thankful to still be able to work in these times, but it has not been giving me a sense of purpose.  So my private journey these days has been sifting through all the ways I can be my healthiest self in this DUMPSTER FIRE TIME without relying on anyone else to keep me on track. When I think about what that looks like,  God has consistently called me back to connecting through words. There’s a lot to process right now and maybe someone reading this will feel less alone as they process their own never ending thoughts. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it. I don’t know if anyone cares what I’m learning in this time (thanks for reading, Mom) and, quite frankly, I don’t know if I’ll ever even post again! All I know for now is, it feels like the next right thing. 

We’ll see what happens. 

Love to your and yours,

Caitlin