We Can Do Hard Things

This post has been on my mind for a while. In fact, I rarely think of much else these days. I have written this post many times in my mind, without typing it out, because I was never sure how I wanted to do it. I am not the type of person that likes to wallow in self-pity, because I donèt see much point in it. It definitely doesnèt help a situation, so itès pretty much useless in my mind. But at the same time, this blog is supposed to be like my journal and family yearbook, and since these are pretty significant events in our lives, I want to blog about it. So itès a fine line. (Wow, this is sounding heavy).

Itès been a rough go for a while. Tyler is working so very hard on finishing his PhD dissertation at the moment. Trying to have it completely by March 28th. Although he has been working on it since doing his defence in April 2009, anyone who is familiar with a PhD knows that these few months have meant crunch time. Most every day he works 12 to 14 hours on it. That means heès up, and showered and out of the house and we donèt see him again until late in the evening, or sometimes not at all.

When he was preparing to do his candidacy exam in April 2009, we experienced something similar. He would go into the office for 14 hours a day and work his tail off...but there were a few differences. It is definitely harder this time. For one, I only had 2 children. And they were not babies, but they were also not school-aged either. So our days were at our leisure. No where to be at a specific time, so we were able to dictate what we did, when we wanted to do it. It was also Spring. We missed dad a lot, but we would fill our days with trips to the zoo or the park, coloring, movies, picnics, shopping, and whatever else we could think of. Often-times, we would bring a picnic dinner in to dad, so at least we all got to see him for an hour a day. We would sit around the boardroom table at his office and eat our dinner together, and then the kids and I would drive home to bed.

This time, we are working around school schedules and baby-napping schedules, so the opportunities to go out and DO are limited. We do not get to surprise dad with picnics, because it gets too late in the evening, and his office is too far away to allow for a decent bedtime. So we just eat alone. I make enough dinner for Tyler every night, and put it into a tupperware container for him to take with him the next day.

The kids and I get up in the morning and have a few minutes with dad...while he showers and gets dressed, and then he is out the door. Most nights, he isnèt home until 9:30 or 10pm, long after the kids have gone to bed, so those 10 to 15 minutes in the morning are all they get of him. He and I usually hang out for an hour before going to bed, and then itès time to start the whole thing again.

In the last few weeks, though, he has been pushing to get renovations done on our house in Cochrane so we can sell it in preparation for our move to Kingston. So most days he works till 9pm, and then goes to our house in town and works until midnight doing things there. I usually am in bed and asleep before he gets home, so even I only get 10 to 15 minutes every morning with him.

To say itès been rough is an understatement. My mom asked me how I was handling being a single parent the other day. I told her that being a single parent isnèt hard. (I imagine that being a true single parent IS) I can handle the day-to-day. Yes, itès a lot of work to do absolutely everything for 3 young kids all day every day for weeks...months. But I know itès not permanent, so I can do it. The hardest part is feeling lonely. The hardest part is knowing how stressed and tired my husband is, and not being able to do anything about it. He sent me a text message the other day with a photo of himself sitting at his desk working. I know flourescent lighting is harsh, but he looked so tired and worn out and like he had aged years in that very day. It brought me to tears. (Ièm sure he loves knowing that a picture of him scared me so much it made me cry!) I packed up the kids into the van and headed into the city that moment in order to surprise him and take out to dinner at BPs. We all needed it.

At this very moment, he is at our house in town working by himself, and plans to keep doing that until the job is done. And Ièm at home. Not able to help because I have 3 kids sleeping, but feeling so desperately stir-crazy because I canèt help.

Sunday has become our new favorite day of the week. We donèt work on Sunday. And so Sunday is now known as èDad-dayè. It puts a lot of pressure on him, though, Ièm sure, because he is so exhausted from working so hard, that he would love Sunday to be a day of èrestè, but itès also the only day that his kids and wife get ANY of his attention. And so he gives more.

On Monday morning, Lucy said, ÈDad, can you play this with meÉÈ as he was getting ready for work. He told her he had to go to work, and she responded with, ÈOK, I guess itèll wait until next Sunday.È He told me it broke his heart.

I guess I finally decided to write this post, because tonight was especially hard, and Ièm not even sure why. His sister and her husband are in town this week, and so for the last 3 days, we have had dinner together as a family. Tonight, it was hard to sit with his entire family at the dinner table and laugh and listen to chatter and stories without him. It was lonely. Sometimes itès easier to feel lonely on your own than in a crowd of people I guess. I think I have a sister who might understand that...and now I understand her a bit more.

Anyway, because I donèt want this to turn into a pity-party, I want to list all the things I am grateful for in this situation, because there have definitely been some blessings.

I am grateful that, although this is rough on my children, they have not acted out, even once. In fact, thay have been close to angelic these past 2 months. They ask me every morning, èdoes dad have to work todayÉÈ and I always tell them yes, but then they leave it alone. Thatès as far as it goes. Max knows that dad is working on his PhD, but an incident happened a few weeks ago that made us realize that he knows the words, but doesnèt know what they mean. As part of Tylerès PhD èworkè, he gets grant money. A portion of that money is designated towards ètechnology and researchè, which is how he has been able to pay for his laptop, etc. The last installment of this research and technology grant money came in this month, and so he decided to use it towards getting an iMac with a really large monitor, so he could have a really reliable computer to finish off with, as well as a large monitor since he is staring at it for 14 hours a day. So one morning the kids get up and see this huge box in our living room. Max comes running down the hallway saying, ÈHe did it! Dad got his PhD!È He showed me the box and I laughed and said, ÈThatès dadès new computer Max. Do you know what a PhD isÉÈ ÈNo.È He obviously assumes that it must be something huge that is keeping his daddy away so much.

I am grateful that Heavenly Father is sustaining us. I feel like we go to bed exhausted every night, but somehow have the energy to get up in the morning and do it all again. Itès like running a long-distance sprint all the time. But somehow, the energy comes back every morning.

I am grateful that everything else has kind of been low-key. Besides muscling through these few months, nothing else is really happening, so we have been able to focus on the task at hand. Weève become really good at saying no to the non-essentials, and that has been a great lesson learned. Every once in a while, you just canèt do everything, and putting your family first at the expense of a lot of other things is just necessary. I donèt feel guilty, and I appreciate that.

I am grateful for a daughter who leaves me random notes and drawings to pick me up. I go to bed every so often and find a little heart cut out of paper, or a picture, or note on my night-table and I am grateful to have her. I donèt know when she sneaks in there and does these things, but I appreciate the pick-me-up.

I am grateful that my children have only called me mean, or no-fun a few times. Most of the time we have fun and they donèt think Ièm too bad to hang out with.

I am most grateful for a completely awesome husband. I have thought on many occassions (many meaning every day for the last 7 and a half years) how grateful I am to have him as my eternal companion, but never more so than right now. I am grateful for how hard he works. Always. And never gives up. Ever. Ièm sure it would be perfectly reasonable for him to have a day where he just threw his hands up in the air and said, èforget it. not today.è But he doesnèt. He continues, no matter how tired he is, or how much it sucks, or how much he misses his kids and his family. He is going to get it done, and thatès just that. Knowing that your husband is a hard worker and never quits is pretty reassuring for an eternal companion. Itès a pretty great quality to have. He doesnèt sleep at night. Not very well anyway. Heès constantly got simulations and other stuff I donèt understand running through his mind. And even though we havenèt talked much these last 2 months, I know he loves me.

So, thatès our life these days. Iève done hard things before, and Ièm sure one day, when Ièm in the middle of something else that is hard, this wonèt seem so bad...and moment by moment, it really isnèt that bad. But I wanted to write it down, so that we could look back and know that we can do hard things, and suceed. So there it is.

And on a positive note: My kids take full advantage of Èdad dayÈ. Things happen when he is around that just donèt happen otherwise. And this is a perfect example:



(Oh, and yes I know that every time I use a question mark or quotations or apostraphe that my computer throws in some random french E, but I am too tired to fix it right now, so you will have to read this post and interpret it yourself...I will fix it another day).