Facing Reality…Facing Uncertainty...

The gift of perspective change...

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Click below for the audio file…

Facing reality sometimes makes we want to about face. Like when I was in elementary school and we would all line up to go to assembly. And then once in order, the teacher would say “about face”, as we all turned around in unison and marched back to our classrooms. 

As so it is an adult when I’ve had to face things I don’t want to. Instead, I again want to literally turn my full body around and go straight in the direction of where, in this case, my sweet memories lived.

It’s almost like a veil or a see-through curtain. Or like in one of those sci-fy movies where the character magically opens this other realm of existence; goes through this amorphous, malleable bubble—looks back for a moment, but then gets enveloped in the other side as he/she steps through. 

Except for me- sometimes I want to say to that veil-like amorphous bubble: “I see you, I recognize you, this reality I’m about to face--but nope, I like it here better. I’m staying on this side! But thank you for the invite anyway!” 

The last time I had this feeling of not wanting to face reality was in a plane leaving Germany. It was a military-but- looks-like-a-civilian plane. We were on a PCS flight—Permanent Change of Station flight. Most of us were moving, but some were just taking the flight like they would any other. However, everyone on the flight itself was either directly or indirectly related to the military. 

It’s an interesting feeling being with hundreds of other military related folks. There’s a sense that we all know what the other is feeling—like any camaraderie—but there’s also a lot of silence and I can feel a depth and breadth to everything that is being processed. 

There’s parents that are recovering from a moving list about 20 items long. And luggage carts with literally often at least 10 suitcases and totes piled like a jenga game. One movement of one suitcase or bag, and allll the suitcases would fall down. The jenga stacking of luggage predicament is really almost like a reflection of the internal preparation to move a family. Numerous things really just need to fit just so, otherwise the move is jeopardized. And when something does go wrong, as it often does, well then everything needs to be shifted causing the jenga stacking of things to do, to get re-stacked, even if not as neatly as the original “plan.” 

So as I gaze at the numerous stacked luggage carts in the airport waiting room, a layer of hidden awareness becomes obvious to me. I see kids that I know are already missing their friends as they anxiously grip their stuffy or distract themselves with screens. I know they are wondering if they will make new friends or what their new school and house will look like. I briefly look at my own kids and without my lips moving, I say a small prayer asking God to keep them in this transition as well. 

I look around and the adults seem just so tired and overwhelmed that the thought of mustering up any conversation is just too much. So the silence without the need or expectation of small talk is welcomed. 

When there is chatting, the dialogue sounds familiar as people recount what their time in Germany has been like, what the move has been like, or where the families are moving to. And then that leads to chatting about each person’s experience at that “duty station”. In a moment of my own processing and quiet, I suddenly realize how I crave hearing conversations that aren’t revolved around moving! What would it be like to just hear conversations that include general life topics—like what are the person’s dreams? what are their hopes? what experiences changed them?

But in this military lifestyle, I have felt like I have spent years using my energy to prepare and recover from moving so much that I haven’t even know what my dreams and aspirations were. It’s almost like I’ve been afraid to even let myself dream because I knew that the military would move us again in 2-3 years anyway. Everything feels temporary and so without me physically ever feeling settled, my sense of being hasn’t had the capacity to dream.

But here in this German land, where we stayed for 4 years, I am thankful that for the first time I was really able to let myself actually settle, in mind, body and spirit. It was even the first time I experienced seasons with adult female friends- when the ebb and flow of life is also reflected in how often you see or talk to a friend. Or when each of you is on a growth curve—sometimes there’s overlap and sometimes there isn’t. At first there’s a tug at your heart—“hey I miss this friend”, but then you realize that it’s okay to let go a little and when the time is right both of you will reconvene again. 

Eventually on the plane, I allowed memories of these friends to go in and out of my consciousness. While also feeling the exhausted anxious energy of everyone around me, I decided to just peer out of the window.

I was sitting next to my daughter who had the window seat. As we took off, I gazed out in the clouds—the sky so blue- well like the color sky-blue, and the clouds just the right fluff as if to almost comfort me. I saw the landscape below and all the little points of reference that felt familiar. The brown-brick-reddish tone coloring of the house rooftops. The vast emerald green lush farmland, and lumpy and bumpy hillsides sprinkled between auburn brown villages. It was this setting where I enjoyed oh so many forest and trail hikes, and made soul connections- with myself, the environment, and dear friends.

In this moment of deep reminiscing, I quickly grabbed my phone to savor this moment of my reality. Actually, it felt almost as if the phone would protect me from this upcoming new reality. I could look at the pics and say: “look, look- it’s in the picture! See, that reality still exists!”

But alas, as the plane continued to rise higher and higher into the sky, it took me- soul and body, into and through that metaphorical and now literal veil; ushering me face to face with my new reality from what was and wasn’t anymore to what will be and will soon be. 

In this new “reality”, what I knew for sure was that what was to come was uncertain. Yes we were certainly going to Hawaii. But what that actually entailed, I did not know for sure. 

In that moment and moments, my body shifted realities while I also held space for shifting uncertainties. There had been the uncertainty of my current life and livelihood changing. And then there was the new uncertainty of what’s to come- all the moving (pun intended) variables of what the new place will be like. 

Uncertainty although not a new concept, experience, or feeling, still felt uncomfortable.

Learning to live with uncertainty is one of those imminent and highly probable, but also highly untrained for aspects of military life for all families. If the active duty personnel is called to show up to a local or international, urgent or emerging mission, then so does the family; whether it’s moving with the spouse or holding down the house and household while he or she is gone.  

Although, indeed, there have been many wonderful and unique opportunities along the way. And I am genuinely grateful for those experiences. But, my husband knows overall I have often become very frustrated and resentful of the trials and tribulations of this unpredictable lifestyle, that often required unspoken sacrifices and unrecognized compromises.

Much of the uncertainty mixed with these life challenges, left me with a feeling that became a question: “what’s the purpose in all this?!” 

Of course I logically understood the tangible purpose of my husband, and us as a family, supporting the institution and its purpose for the community, the nation, and internationally. But from a deeply personal as well as from a much greater spiritual perspective, I couldn’t shake this drive to understand what was the purpose or the meaning of living life in this unpredictable and often uncomfortable way?? 

It was a question that just sort of seemed to hang out within me and around me- kind of like that sweatshirt tossed over the dining room chair. Sometimes I appreciate it being right there where I can put it on when I’m chilly, but then other times I’m annoyed by its presence because it reminds me of the clutter around me.

And then on one otherwise regular ho-hum day- in a sort of lull between uncertainties, a new perspective dawned on me.

I was listening to a podcast while doing the morning dishes. It’s interesting how when something suddenly lights up your brain and heart, it can take SO much awareness, that what you’re physically doing slows down. In that moment of deep awareness, I remember that I literally paused mid-step between the counter and the dishwasher to put away a plate. In that moment, whatever little headspace that was needed to put the dish away, was sucked up by my being, absorbing the words said on the podcast and the impact it had on my outlook.

As it can often be when something unrelated inspires that metaphorical lightbulb to go on, the conversation on the podcast wasn’t about my specific situation; there was no mention of military life and it wasn’t about uncertainty in particular. But there was a sort of common thread being discussed about going through something “big” in life that can bring you to your knees, in a type of surrender. And in the moment, that “big” thing is often completely unwanted, but in a Divine way, it is “needed”.

It’s like when you go to the chiropractor with a pain in your back or shoulder. Before making the adjustment, the practitioner says: “this is going to hurt. But then you will feel better.” It’s often the same thing with big, unwanted things in life. It absolutely hurts, but if you allow the pain of the adjustment to take shape in your body or life, or relationship, then again literally and metaphorically, there is space for the change that is needed for a more expansive life and flexible body. 

Same thing with my adjustment; military life was really waring on me. But what military life gave me, in my life, was the practice of uncertainty. And that practice of uncertainty, although sometimes excruciating to bare, was actually purposeful for the life I was seeking to live, and the person I was seeking to become.

That was the new perspective I needed. 

I had been through SO many adjustments, but I had never really surrendered. And so even after each adjustment, or move, I still had that pain in my neck because it was like I was still carrying a heavy backpack- aka loads and loads of resentment for military life! 

After the adjustments, or changes in life because the army was calling us to something, I would spend so much effort and time trying to be “settled”—mostly physically, but also emotionally and mentally. I’d often be searching for some rhyme or reason for the new adjustment. Or often just plain mad at the change! 

And so there in the middle of putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, I suddenly really fully surrendered to understanding the purpose of my life for over 17 years at the time, as a military spouse. 

So having had all the adjustments already, I had been to that “chiropractor” A LOT—all I had to do was shift my posture, or in this case shift my perspective. Yes the hard was hard, but the other truth I instantly felt was that there was undoubtedly good too; a positive force way beyond what I had imagined. 

I realized that in practicing how to cope and thrive after each move, without knowing what was next, I was able to grow my faith in God, the Unknown and the Known. I had been able in those many moves to figure out how to be present and (mostly) enjoy our new life, even and maybe because of uncertainty. 

In that moment of perspective change with new lenses that felt gifted to me, I was suddenly able to drop that metaphorical backpack. I stood straight up for the first time, gazed behind my shoulder and like a first warm but chilly, spring flowered filled breath of fresh air, I said, “ahhhh now I get it…”