The Way it Was Supposed to Be

We were supposed to travel. We were young, newly married, newly free.

Four years of travel while you finished out your enlistment seemed like the thing to do. It’s what people in the military just did.

Until it was time to move into our first home. You weren’t there that first day. Called away to a training you couldn’t miss. I understood, it was what we had signed up for. But I was quickly learning that our freedom wasn’t going to look like I thought it would.

As I sat on the side of our mattress on the floor, sun beaming through the window we had no curtains for, I decided to take that test. Honestly, just to be able to throw away the box.

3 minutes later I thought my eyes were deceiving me…but which box were those glasses in?
I knelt closer to the small white stick lying on the side of the bathtub.

Two lines.

 

Slowly I walked in disbelief back to that mattress on the floor and sank into its sheets. Pulling the covers over my head and drifting off to sleep. Knowing life would never be the same. 

 

Supposed to be is a finicky phrase. One that makes us feel entitled to our control. I learned that morning that there are far far greater things in store for our lives than the supposed to be’s.

Right now he is a walking, talking, 7 year old with the most tender almond eyes. Followed by his two little brothers, or “kids” as he calls them. And everyday I wake up in that same mattress, no longer on the floor, and walk past the crib that will soon hold our next son. 


While freedom to travel is still elusive, as I imagine it will be for many years, I think your heart would echo mine when you hear the words…”This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.”

You’re right. It isn’t.

It’s better.